


Under My Skin

by Poetgirl925



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - No Hydra Takeover, Drama, F/M, Humor, Romance, Sexual Content, Undercover Assignment, Universe Alteration, Ward is out of his depth, fake engagement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:26:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 70,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2405168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetgirl925/pseuds/Poetgirl925
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Skyeward. As a specialist, Grant Ward values control and order in his missions. But when he's paired for a long term undercover op with Skye, a former Rising Tide hacker he previously butted heads with, his infamous control is tested. Posing as a newly engaged couple, they're wary partners in a mission that could prove fatal if they can't learn to trust each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N – First fic for this fandom. Obviously this is AU, so I’ll keep some canon things and change whatever I feel like changing. I’m not sure I’m shipping this couple in current canon – I suppose I’m on the fence - but I do find their dynamic interesting. No beta, so any mistakes are my own.

** Chapter 1 **

 

Agent Grant Ward slipped off his sunglasses as he entered the atrium of the Triskelion, the massive S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters located in Washington, D.C. Being called back to D.C. had been unexpected since he’d been preparing for a mission in the Middle East. While no details were provided over the phone, Agent Phillip Coulson had said there was a change of plan and advised him to report to headquarters immediately. 

Swiping his security badge quickly, he took the elevator up to the 20th floor, not surprised to see Coulson waiting for him. 

“Sir.” Ward nodded in greeting and shook his hand. 

“Agent Ward. Thanks for coming so quickly.” Coulson tilted his head, indicating Ward should follow him down the hall to his office.  Coulson closed the door behind them and took a seat behind his desk. “As you’ve probably guessed, you can scrap your mission for the Middle East. We need you on something else.” 

Ward nodded. “Okay.” 

“This will be a… unique situation for you,” Coulson continued. 

“Unique, sir?” 

“You won’t be working alone on this one,” the older man explained. 

“I’m going to have a partner?” That was definitely unique. As a specialist, Ward was accustomed to working alone. It was how he worked best. 

“Yes, and an untrained one at that.” Coulson’s tone was faintly apologetic. “Are you familiar with Quinn Worldwide?” 

“Yes, sir. Ian Quinn is the CEO – he’s a billionaire and a philanthropist, and his company is known for technological advances. I wasn’t aware he was under scrutiny by S.H.I.E.L.D.” 

“Billionaires working on technological advances are always under scrutiny. One of our computer science analysts was assigned to track him, and we believe he may have found a store of a very rare element called Gravitonium. Its existence was theorized years ago by Dr. Franklin Hall, but it’s never been proven despite Quinn’s relentless mining around the world. If he really did find it this time, we need to know.”

 “I’m guessing Gravitonium is dangerous?” He’d never heard of it before, but that was to be expected with a lot of the things the agency dealt with. Half of his assignments read like science fiction.

 “Theoretically, it could be used to affect gravitational fields. Dr. Hall designed a device he called a gravity field generator which he believed would be able to harness the element’s gravitational fields, though his theories have never been tested. Dr. Hall works at the academy now and is no longer associated with Quinn, but that wouldn’t stop Quinn from experimenting if he’s actually found his Holy Grail. And experimentation with something as dangerous as Gravitonium could have disastrous results.”

 Ward took a moment to process this information, wary now of where he suspected Coulson was heading. “Sir, when you say untrained partner – are you sending me in with a scientist?” He prayed to God he was wrong.

 Coulson shook his head. “No. You’ll be working with the computer science analyst who was originally assigned to digitally tail Quinn. She’s familiar with his movements and habits, and she has a surprising level of expertise in hacking. Her cover will be a new hire in the computer sciences department. We got lucky, actually. A former acquaintance of hers works for Quinn Worldwide and was able to arrange the Skype interview. Quinn loved her so the job is hers.”

 “A computer science analyst.” He felt the beginnings of a headache. “And my cover?”

 “Yourself,” Coulson told him. “Or at least the Grant Ward that officially exists for this assignment – a member of the Army’s elite Special Forces who has recently left the service in order to settle down with his new fiancée. Your story will be that you’re looking for work in the private sector. A job at Quinn Worldwide would be ideal, so see if you can work that angle.”

 His partner was a woman who probably stayed glued to her computers so often she rarely saw daylight and she was not trained for field work of any kind. And since they’d be living together, pretending to be engaged, he knew this had the potential to be a long term operation. This was literally his idea of Hell.

 Coulson seemed to sense his reservations. “I realize this isn’t your kind of mission, Ward, but the agent we initially had in play was recently injured on an op, and we can’t send her in alone.”

 Ward nodded, suppressing a sigh. It wasn’t his place to question orders or assignments. Ask him to infiltrate the KGB or drop him into the middle of a live fire fight, and he felt right at home. This assignment would likely test him and his abilities in new and unexpected ways. His partner was essentially a variable; something he’d been trained to eliminate, not cohabitate with. “How soon do we report?”

 “You have a week,” Coulson replied. “You’ll travel to California next Friday and move into your new home over the weekend. It’s a small starter home in a nice, family friendly neighborhood a short drive away from the coast. Who knows? Maybe sunny Cali will agree with you.”

 Somehow Ward doubted it. “I’ll need to meet my partner as soon as possible, sir. We should get our mission profiles and discuss our backstory.”

 Glancing at his watch, Coulson said, “You can meet her now. She should be waiting for us with Commander Hill in the conference room down the hall.”

 Ward followed Coulson out of his office and down the hall. Commander Maria Hill was waiting beside the door of one of the smaller conference rooms, and she wasn’t alone. Natasha Romanov, better known as Black Widow among the other specialists, was standing beside Hill.

 She nodded at them, but her lips were curved into a smirk that made Ward uneasy. He nodded back. “Romanov.”

 “Ward. Heard you were tying the knot.”

 Trust Romanov to be amused by the situation. “It’s an assignment just like any other.”

 “Hmm. At least your fiancée is hot. Could have been worse.”

 Ward glanced towards the conference room window, deciding to ignore Romanoff rather than rise to her baiting.

 A young woman sat alone at the table, tilting her chair back in a precarious way that looked destined for disaster. Long, wavy brown hair tumbled over the back of the seat, and the fingers of her left hand tapped out a rhythmic pattern against the sleek, black surface in front of her. A slender, white wire angling down from beneath her hair indicated she was listening to music. She was moving her entire upper body now, and one small hand suddenly reached up, twisting a curl between her fingers.

 A jolt of recognition, of awareness, passed through Ward. No, it couldn't be.

"Sir, is that..."

 "Skye," Agent Coulson finished his sentence. "I thought you'd probably remember her."

 "I remember that we arrested her a year ago because she was working with Rising Tide," Ward said cautiously, struggling to keep his reaction in check. “I questioned her but she refused to give me any information. What is she doing here?”

 Skye, no last name provided, had run verbal circles around him in that interrogation room. It had been borderline humiliating, especially since Coulson and Hill had been watching. After several hours, Coulson had called a halt to the questioning, and Ward spent the rest of the afternoon pounding out his frustrations in the gym and rethinking his strategy. But when he'd returned to the holding rooms the next day, she was no longer in custody.

 "After I relieved you in interrogation, she and I came to an understanding of sorts. She started working as a consultant in the Computer Sciences Division. For this mission, she’ll be bumped to Level 1 clearance.”

 "Really." Ward didn't bother to mask his skepticism. "And she what? Switched her allegiance to S.H.I.E.L.D.? I don't buy that. With all due respect, sir, if I can't trust her, this mission will never work."

 Coulson spoke bluntly. "She didn't cooperate in the beginning because you pissed her off, Agent Ward. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – your people skills? Not the greatest." The older agent turned his head to watch Skye for a moment. "Skye's allegiance was never aligned that firmly with Rising Tide. She had her reasons for joining them. She also had her reasons for letting us find her in the first place."

 Ward raised a brow at that, wondering why a hacker would want to be arrested. "I can think of a few reasons a hacker would want to get inside this agency, and none of them are good."

 "Her reasons were personal and not relevant to this mission," Coulson countered. "Suffice to say she's proven herself in the last year, and she's been vetted by Agent Koenig, Commander Hill, and myself. If she had field training, we'd allow her to go in alone."

 "But she doesn't." The news that Koenig had vetted her was surprising since Ward couldn’t imagine how she might have beaten his particular method of lie detecting.

 "No. And there are no available field agents with her skill set that fit the employee profile we need to fill at Quinn Worldwide. They're known for hiring young, out-of-the-box thinkers, and Skye fits that description perfectly."

 Out-of-the-box thinker was one way of putting it. Careful to keep his expression contained, Grant looked at Coulson. "And you're sure I'm the best person for this mission?"

 Coulson smiled. "No one better."

 Ward ran a hand over his jaw and looked at Hill. “You really think she’s trustworthy enough for a mission like this?”

 Commander Hill met his gaze head on. “Yes, I do. The question now is if the two of you can sell your covers.”

 “I can sell my cover if she can sell hers.”

 “I don’t know, Ward. She got under your skin on your last go round,” Romanov said, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms. When Ward shot her a look, she shrugged and smiled. “Interrogations are recorded, and Agent Ward chasing his own tail during an interrogation was something I had to see to believe. There might have been popcorn involved.”

 Ignoring Romanov, he turned to Coulson and said, “I’d like a few minutes alone with her.”

 “By all means.” Coulson waved to the door and stepped aside. Ward opened the door and stepped inside.

 Romanov took up a position in front of the window, using her foot to stop the door from closing all the way. When Coulson raised a brow at her, she shrugged. “Like I’m the only one who wants to hear this.” 

***

 Skye tapped her pen against the table and wondered how much longer she’d be waiting to meet the new guy replacing Agent Triplett. She was both excited and nervous about her first time in the field; excited because her clearance level was bumped and it was actual field work but nervous about playing domestically blissful with a stranger. There was very little chance of that not being weird.

 Suddenly a suit entered her field of vision and she jumped, pulling out her ear buds. “Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.”

 “If you’re going to do field work, you should be more aware of your surroundings,” the suit replied. “That’s how I got the jump on you a year ago.”

 That voice. Startled, her eyes flew up to meet those of Agent Grant Ward. Or as she liked to call him, Agent Toolbag. “You got the jump on me because I let you. I knew you were coming.”

 “Really.”

 She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I didn’t know you were coming at that exact moment, and the black bag over my head as you violated my civil rights was a little unexpected, but you so didn’t get the jump on me.”

 Agent Ward walked around the small conference table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Folding his hands in front of him on the table, his expression unreadable, he asked, “Why are you here?”

 Skye sat forward and folded her hands in a similar fashion, returning his stare. “Did S.H.I.E.L.D. teach you the death stare or does it just come naturally?” No reaction. “Because your Robocop impression is creepy. Just saying.” Aww, there it was – that squeezed lemon look he got so often when she talked. Mission accomplished, she sat back and smiled at him.

 “Agent Coulson and Commander Hill seem to think you can be trusted and you’re serious about this assignment,” he finally said, jaw clenched, “but I have my doubts. And going into the field with doubts is not something I do.”

 Going into the field… wait, what? “Oh no way. You’re my new partner? Because that’s just crazy. You don’t even like me and we’re supposed to live together?”

 “Whether I like you or not is irrelevant,” Agent Ward replied. “I’m trained to get the job done.”

Unlike you. The unspoken accusation hung in the air between them. “Sure. And if your mission involved being a cyborg assassin, you’d be the perfect guy. You’re supposed to be my fiancé. A loving fiancé who is changing careers so he can settle down with the girl of his dreams. And Coulson said this assignment might be long – like a year, or longer. Whose idea was this, anyway? Because it’s a  _terrible_ idea.”

 There was no way she could live with Agent Toolbag for a year while pretending to be his fiancée. She practically had hives just thinking about the misery that scenario would produce. Sure, needling him and trying to get a reaction out of him amused her, but a year? She turned and looked at the window behind her, glaring at Coulson when she saw him watching. 

***

 When Skye turned and glared at him, Coulson heaved a sigh. “Well this is going well.” He shook his head and pushed the door open to join Ward and Skye in the conference room.

 Not wanting to miss anything, Romanov again propped the door open with the toe of her boot. “Actually, it is going well,” she commented. “When’s the last time you saw someone get this kind of reaction out of Ward? A hundred says they’re at it like bunnies before the end of the assignment.”

 “Don’t say that in front of Coulson,” Maria told her. “He’s become a sort of father figure to Skye in the last year. Besides, this is Grant Ward we’re talking about. He doesn’t get personally involved in his assignments.”

 Suddenly, Skye’s voice drifted through the cracked door of the conference. “Look, I know he’s all that and a ginormous bag of tools on his specialist missions, but a year of being Mrs. T-1000 is not what I signed on for.”

 Romanov snorted in amusement as Maria said, “Oh for crying out loud.” Pushing the door open, she folded her arms. “Enough. You two have forty-eight hours to work this out.”

 Skye looked at her hopefully. “Or we’re reassigned?”

 “Or you’re both in my doghouse and you will not like it,” she replied evenly. “This mission is too important. Forty-eight hours – work it out.” She leveled a hard stare at Ward, who looked resigned.

 “Understood, Commander Hill,” he said, pushing away from the table and standing up.

 Skye looked confused as she watched Ward walk away. “Wait, what’s understood? How will forty-eight hours make any difference?”

 Romanov turned her attention away from the window when Ward walked out of the room, allowing the door to close fully behind him.

 “Don’t,” he warned, running a hand over the back of his neck. Skye was every bit as frustrating as he remembered, and he hated how off balance she made him feel.

 “I didn’t say a word.” Romanov leaned her shoulder against the window. “But if I did, I’d say your approach is all wrong with this girl. She’s not an agent and like most normal people, she doesn’t respond well to interrogation.”

 “Your point?”

 “Try treating her like a girl. I’ve seen you work an asset, Ward. You can be charming – sort of. And you’re obviously attracted to her.”

 Ward took a breath, rattled both by Romanov’s insight and his apparent transparency when it came to Skye. Because as much as he didn’t want to, he’d felt a spark of something in that interrogation room a year ago, and he’d felt it again today. Skye was frustrating and irritating, but she was also beautiful and smart. He’d never met anyone who stirred so many conflicting emotions within him and he didn’t like it.

 He gestured in Skye’s direction. “Even if you were right, I wouldn’t work her like an asset. We’re supposed to be partners in this, not adversaries trying to one up each other.”

“You don’t have to work her like an asset to treat her like a human being. She obviously has a problem with Agent Ward, so try being Grant. You’re going to be locked up together for forty-eight hours anyway. What do you really have to lose?” She turned and started walking down the hall. “By the way, that attraction isn’t one-sided.” 


	2. Chapter 2

** Chapter 2 **

“Forty-eight hours – unbelievable,” Skye grumbled, haphazardly throwing clothes and toiletries into her overnight bag. When Coulson had explained Commander Hill’s orders, she’d protested. Shacking up with Agent Ward for the next two days was going to be a strain. A big one – of that she had no doubt.

Jemma Simmons eyed the jumbled mess in the bag and began pulling things out and rearranging them more neatly. “It’s smart, actually. You need time to talk and work out your story. You should be comfortable with each other, so I understand why Commander Hill ordered it.”

“Talk and get comfortable with the robot?” Skye made a face at her friend. “Is he even programmed for basic human behavior?”

“He’s not a robot,” Jemma protested. “He’s simply serious about the mission.”

“He could be,” Leo Fitz commented from his spot on the edge of Skye’s bed. “An LMD. I’ve heard rumors about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s use of LMDs you know.”

“Oh, Fitz.”

“LMD?” Skye asked, raising a brow.

“Life-Model Decoy,” Jemma explained, smoothing the folded edges of one of Skye’s shirts and placing it in the bag. “Fitz has a wild theory that Agent Koenig is an LMD.”

Fitz sat up indignantly. “They’re not wild theories. And I didn’t even mention Agent Koenig, even though he’s always talking about his brothers.”

“And that makes him a robot?” Jemma scoffed.

“No one has that many brothers,” he retorted. “And Agent Ward…”

When Fitz paused, Jemma finished the sentence. “Agent Ward is one of the best specialists S.H.I.E.L.D. has. We’ve all heard the stories, and I for one am happy that he’ll be looking after Skye.”

“Hey, I’m not a puppy,” Skye laughed. She sat beside Fitz and poked at the machinery in his hands. “I don’t suppose you could rig up an LMD remote? You know, just in case you’re right.”

“Skye, this isn’t a joke,” Jemma told her, setting the bag aside and taking a seat beside Skye and Fitz. “I know you’re excited about field work, and I’m excited for you. But you don’t have any field training! You haven’t been to the academy. If you get caught, you’ll be grateful to have Agent Ward there to help. A specialist is like having a Special Forces team in one person. Right, Fitz?”

“The Cavalry would be better, or Agent Romanov, or one of the Avengers.” When Jemma shot him a pointed look, he said, “Fine, yes.”

“Don’t mind Fitz. He’s still angry because when Agent Ward tested the new ICER guns, he said the weight was off by an ounce.”

Skye appreciated that her friend was looking on the bright side. “Guess you’re probably right. I just wish he had a little more personality, that’s all. I don’t know how we can possibly pull off being in love.”

“Well, he is handsome.” Jemma sighed when Skye raised a brow at her. “What? I’m just saying it could be worse.”

Skye leaned her head on Jemma’s shoulder. Her friend had a point. Agent Toolbag was attractive in a very tightly wound, locked down kind of way. He was the total opposite of her ex-flame, Miles. Not for the first time, she wondered how it would feel to see Miles again.

She’d met Miles Lydon after running away from St. Agnes, and she’d learned hacking and coding from him. They’d been off and on for a long time, and it was during an off period that she’d been picked up by S.H.I.E.L.D.  And just like that, she’d dropped off the map. It was only after she’d begun researching Quinn that she found out Miles had gone to work for Quinn Worldwide.

Rather than reach out to Miles, Coulson had suggested she leave a digital trail for Miles to follow much like the one she’d utilized to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. to her door. And follow it he had, telling her how Quinn had an open minded hiring policy when she mentioned needing legit work. From there she’d Skyped with Ian Quinn himself, and the job was hers.

Even though she and Miles hadn’t been together in a while, she still cared and she felt guilty that she was about to blindside him with a fiancé he had no idea existed. Coulson had advised her to keep that bit quiet until she actually arrived in California. At this point, she wasn’t sure if Miles would even buy the deception. One look at her with RoboWard was likely to set off his bullshit detector.

When Skye sighed, Jemma wrapped an arm around her. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”

“Back at you, Simmons,” she replied, turning into the hug and giving a return squeeze.

“She’s not even leaving yet,” Fitz pointed out. “She’ll be back here in two days. Hey!” He yelped when both girls turned on him, armed with the pillows from Skye’s bed.

Skye was leaning over the edge of the bed, laughing, when she heard a throat clear. She sat up quickly and pushed her hair out of her face.

Agent Ward stood in the open doorway of her small studio apartment. While his uber serious expression was unchanged, his men in black appearance had received a downgrade. Gone were the dark suit, crisp white shirt and no nonsense black tie she’d assumed he slept in. Now clad in jeans, a grey Henley tucked in just above his belt buckle in a way that hinted at perfect abs, and a black leather jacket, he looked different. Edgier. Dangerous.

Agent Toolbag was definitely hot, damn it.

Unwilling to give him such a height advantage, Skye stood up and smoothed the hem of her purple knit top where it had ridden up. “How did you know where I live?” She’d thought they were meeting at the Triskelion atrium.

“Agent Coulson told me you had a unit in the S.H.I.E.L.D. housing wing,” he answered, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. “Are you ready?”

Mentally, no. Definitely not.

“Yeah.” She turned back to Jemma and took the overnight bag she was holding out, giving her another hug. Looping the strap of her laptop bag over her shoulder, she gave Fitz a one armed hug and said, “Don’t forget to feed Nemo.”

“Can I take him to my place?” Fitz asked. He and Jemma also lived in the building, so it would be a short trip.

“Might as well. I can’t take him with me to California anyway.” The magnitude of what she’d agreed to was finally hitting her. In just a few short days, she was going to leave the only real home she’d ever known – leave Coulson, Jemma and Fitz – leave her first pet. Feeling emotional, she walked over to Nemo’s small tank. “Bye Nemo. Fitz will take good care of you, I promise.”

The clown fish looked bored as he swam lazy laps around his small tank.

She tapped the tank gently. “You could at least pretend to be sad. I saved you from that mean kid beating on your tank in the fish store, you know. He probably would have flushed you by now.” Straightening up, she tossed her spare set of keys to Jemma. “See you in two days.”

When Skye turned to look at Ward, he had a strange expression on his face. “What?”

Shaking his head, he took her overnight bag and waved her ahead of him. The polite gesture surprised her so much she didn’t protest. Skye was very aware of the heat of his body as he walked beside her, and she noticed that he had shortened his stride, allowing her to easily keep up with him. They took the elevator down to the ground floor, and Skye waved at the security guard at the front desk.

As they walked into the parking lot, Agent Ward asked, “Is your van here?”

“No,” she answered. “I sold it three months ago.” Once she’d committed to S.H.I.E.L.D. she had realized she wouldn’t need it anymore. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was done running, and the realization had been much more freeing than her previous, nomadic existence.

“You can ride with me, then.”

She followed him to a new model, silver SUV. Agent Ward opened the back door and tossed her bag in, stepping aside to allow her to slide her laptop bag onto the seat. Walking around to the passenger side, Skye got in and put on her seatbelt, noticing the car still had that new smell.

“So, Agent Ward. Where does Hill have us shacking up for the next two days?”

“My place. And you can call me Grant.” He turned his head to check behind him as he backed out of the parking spot.

Grant. She had only ever referred to him as Ward or Agent Ward in her mind, but she supposed she couldn’t call him by his last name if he was supposed to be her fiancé. “Is that who you are for the mission? Grant Ward?” At his nod, she said, “I guess I just assumed your name would be something else.”

He kept his eyes on the road as he answered her. “Agent Grant Ward of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t officially exist. Specialists do black ops and deep cover ops, so our agency records are kept in-house.”

“Okay. Who are you outside the agency?”

“Grant Ward attended military school at sixteen and entered the US Army when he turned eighteen. He was trained as a sniper and then tapped for the Army Special Forces at twenty-two, where he remained until he left the Army a month ago.”

Skye mulled that over for a moment. Half expecting him to shut her questions down, she prodded for more. “Is any of that actually true?”

“About half,” he replied, glancing at her briefly. “I was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. when I was twenty-two. Half-truths can sometimes be more effective than lies when building a cover.”

“Good to know.” She looked at him curiously, wondering why he was being… nice? At the very least, he wasn’t being confrontational with her. She turned her attention to the window, suddenly feeling nervous about spending the next two days with him.

Twenty minutes later they turned onto a tree lined street with blocks of townhomes and red brick apartments. Grant parked on the street in front of one of the red brick buildings and turned off the engine. Skye got out, taking her laptop bag from him when he walked around the vehicle.

Following him up the steps, she waited while he unlocked the door. Inside was another door directly in front of them and a staircase to the left. They took the stairs, and Grant unlocked another door on the top floor.

His apartment had an open floor plan. The walls were brick, the floors hardwood in a deep shade of amber. To her right was a small table with four chairs, and she could see the kitchen beyond that. Directly in front of her were a sofa, two armchairs, and a wooden coffee table. There was a bookcase against the wall and a flat screen TV mounted opposite the sofa.

To her left there was a half bath and another wooden staircase which she assumed led to the bedrooms. As if answering her unspoken question, Ward walked up the stairs, motioning for her to follow.

At the top of the stairs was the master bedroom with attached bathroom. It was functional but not fussy, containing a queen bed flanked by two nightstands and a large dresser opposite the bed. Skye expected Ward to show her to the other door she’d noticed to the right of the landing. Instead, he dropped her bag on the end of the bed.

“I cleared out a couple of drawers for you, and the closet is here.” He opened a door next to the nightstand to reveal a small walk-in closet.

Skye opened her mouth, words failing her for once. “What about…?”

Ward turned to her, waiting.

She cleared her throat. “The other bedroom. There isn’t one, is there?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Skye, you understand that once we get to California, we’ll be sleeping in the same bed every night, right? On deep cover ops like this, we don’t have room for mistakes like someone realizing we’re maintaining separate bedrooms even though we’re newly engaged. And we don’t want to be cornered in separate rooms by an intruder, either.”

“No, I get it. I just – I didn’t really think about it, I guess.” And she definitely should have. Why the hell hadn’t Coulson thought to mention the fine print of this mission? If it was Tripp, it wouldn’t matter so much. Ever since he’d been assigned to the Triskelion and taken an apartment in the same building as her, Fitz and Simmons, the four of them had taken to spending down time together. Tripp was surprisingly laid back for a specialist, and they got along well, so it wouldn’t have been a problem.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The whole point of this two day exercise is for us to get comfortable with each other and try to find some common ground.”

“So, what, we do trust exercises like they do at those corporate getaways? FitzSimmons and I did some of those exercises one night and Fitz nearly took me out when he grabbed my hair at the last minute,” she said with a smirk. She could do this. She could joke and snark about it, and it would be okay.

“We’ll be doing intimacy exercises.”

Intimacy exercises? What the hell? “Okay, I just want to get this out here. I don’t care what Coulson thinks Ian Quinn is up to, I am not having sex with you to strengthen our bond or whatever.”

Ward heaved a long suffering sigh, looking down and rubbing a finger along the bridge of his nose. “Intimacy exercises, Skye, not sex. Look, why don’t you unpack and we’ll talk about it downstairs when you’re done. Do you want to stay in or go out for dinner?”

“Out.” Definitely out, somewhere public where she didn’t feel so penned up. Someplace far away from this bed she’d have to share with Ward in a few hours.

He nodded and left her alone. Skye eyed the bed for a moment before sinking to the floor and propping her chin on her hand. The words ‘intimacy exercises’ were just floating around her brain on a loop now as she tried to imagine what that would entail. He’d said no sex, so… holding hands? Some combination of physical and emotional intimacy? Why wasn’t there a handbook for this?

Whatever they were, she felt sure it involved touching. Touching Ward, the guy who’d black bagged her like a terrorist when he’d taken her from her van a year ago. Okay, so he thought she was a terrorist of the cyber variety, but still. He’d dumped her in a holding room and grilled her for hours, unamused by her witty retorts and verbal sparring.

It was all deflection with her, her own brand of armor, and she’d have to find a way to drop some of that if their pretense was going to fool anyone. Worse, it had to fool Miles, and he’d known her for a long time. Steeling her resolve, Skye rose and unpacked her overnight bag, putting clothes away in the empty drawers and laying out her toiletries in the bathroom.

Walking over to the closet, she placed her sneakers and a pair of boots beside Ward’s much larger shoes. Seeing their shoes lined up together was wigging her out, so she quickly closed the door. Glancing in the mirror and deciding she looked fine for a casual dinner out, she took a deep breath and left the bedroom.

A quick look inside the other room off the hallway confirmed it was a small office. The apartment was nice and perfectly fine for one person, but she already felt like there was no escape, no place for any of the me time she usually craved at the end of the day. It was one of the reasons she’d clung so fiercely to her independence even when Miles had asked her to move in with him.

She wondered if Ward had ever lived with anyone before. Before today she’d have said no, but now she wasn’t so sure. Even his apartment was much different than she’d imagined when he said they’d be staying at his place. She had formed a vague mental picture of a utilitarian space reminiscent of Army barracks, and it was nothing like that.

Skye walked down the stairs and into the living room area where Ward sat on the sofa, listening to the news while going through some folders spread out on the coffee table in front of him.

“Have you ever lived with anyone before?” she asked, sitting in one of the armchairs.

Ward looked up at her, shaking his head. “No.”

“Neither have I. Common ground, right?”

His lips quirked a little at that. “It’s a start.”

“The thing is, I’m not a fembot.” He shot her a look at that description. “What I mean is that I’m probably not going to react to things all calmly and professionally like you do. I can try, but it’s not really how I’m wired. And there’s a potential problem.”

That got his attention. “What problem?”

“I’m sure somewhere in one of those folders, it says that a former contact with Rising Tide works for Quinn and got me the interview, right?” At Ward’s nod, she continued, “He and I were sort of together before.”

“You were lovers.”

She nodded, appreciating his matter of fact tone. “We were friends first. He taught me hacking and coding, and he introduced me to Rising Tide. It was sort of off and on with us until he asked me to move in and I bailed. I haven’t seen him in over a year, and he doesn’t know anything about my life now.”

Ward sat back against the sofa and rubbed his jaw before folding his hands in front of him. “It’s still a potential problem because he knows you in ways I don’t – your moods and habits, for one thing. How do you think he’ll react to you being engaged?”

Skye shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He stared at her for a moment before standing and holding out his hand.

“Let me guess – intimacy exercises? Handholding 101?” she joked as she swallowed down the nerves suddenly consuming her.

“Skye.”

He didn’t say anything else – just her name, but she sighed and stood up, grasping his hand in a firm handshake and holding it. His hand was big and warm, and she could feel calluses against her palm. Then he turned his hand, pressing their palms together and aligning their fingers before lacing them together.

Her eyes were glued to their joined hands as something squirmed deep in her belly.

“Do I make you nervous?” Ward asked.

Her eyes flew to his. “Check your ego, Agent Ward. I’ve been holding hands with boys for a long time.”

“Grant,” he reminded her, squeezing her hand.

Was she the only one feeling this? Skye bit her lip and then placed her other hand on his chest, moving it up and over his shoulder. His expression never changed, but she felt the tightening of his muscles. He wasn’t as relaxed as he’d like her to believe. He wasn’t immune, either.

Then he stepped back, his hand releasing hers. “If you’re hungry, we can go to dinner now. Any preferences? Food allergies?”

Skye blinked, disoriented by the quick mood and topic change. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not picky, really. No food allergies. You?”

“No. If we walk down a couple of blocks, there are a lot of different restaurants – Italian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Korean barbecue, a few food trucks.”

“Okay.” Determined to make this work, Skye slipped her hand in his as they walked out the door. He didn’t comment on it, but he didn’t pull away either. _Baby steps_ , she reminded herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next - intimacy exercises and Bed Sharing 101 ; )


	3. Chapter 3

** Chapter 3 **

Skye set a couple of bags down on the wooden table Ward had occupied before taking a seat across from him. “God this smells good. I love food trucks.”

“So I see,” Ward observed, watching her pull various items from the bags. “Are you actually going to eat all of that?”

“Nope. You’re going to help me,” she answered. She stuck a straw in her cup and took a sip before unwrapping a stuffed tortilla.

“I have my dinner right here.” And he did, having opted for BBQ beef brisket and steak fries.

“Your big pile of meat over there will still be good tomorrow,” she told him, taking a bite of the tortilla. “Oh my God, so good. Besides, this is one of my things.”

Ward raised a questioning brow as he wondered what else she had bought. “Buying too much food?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, sharing. I like trying different things and sharing them. So, Grant honey,” she said, holding out her wrap, “have some of my burrito.”

When he didn’t move, she waved it under his nose. “Come on, open up.” She was smiling at him now, her tone coaxing, and he felt a surge of amusement though he didn’t let it show. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he took a bite of the offered food.

It was full of shredded beef, black beans, guacamole, sweet plantains, and cheese, and he chewed slowly, savoring the flavors.

“Good, right?” Skye took another bite followed by a sip of her soda.

He had to admit it was. “It’s an arepa, not a burrito. I’ve had them before in Venezuela.”

“Venezuela, huh?” She was busy pulling two boxes from another bag. “I’d never even been to the east coast before you picked me up in L.A., but I guess you’ve been everywhere.”

“Not everywhere. And they weren’t exactly vacations,” he pointed out. He snagged the arepa and took another bite.

“No, I guess not.” She pulled the top off of a plastic bowl and sniffed appreciatively. “Korean BBQ bowl with bacon kimchi rice and spicy pork. We also have a selection of pickles and kimchi fries.” She forked up a bite of kimchi, cheese and fries and offered it to him. This time he allowed it without protest, chasing the spicy food with a sip of his water.

“Check us out, sharing our food like real people who are really dating,” Skye commented, motioning for the arepa. He held it out, allowing her to take another bite. “We probably don’t even need those exercises.”

Ward placed the arepa on the plate before him and grabbed a napkin, watching her closely. She could deny it, but it was clear that she was freaked out by the intimacy exercises. He’d assumed that someone would have mentioned them to her – Coulson, for example, or Agent Triplett. They were something of a joke among the field agents despite the fact they could be used to effectively foster the appearance of physical and emotional intimacy.

He could admit now, at least to himself, that he was attracted to Skye. If she were a field agent, that would actually be a bonus. Feeling a level of attraction for the person you were paired with in this type of undercover operation could make things easier because a trained agent knew how to mine that attraction, use it, and then compartmentalize it without making a mess out of the mission.

The problem with Skye was that he doubted she was capable of compartmentalization. She had her defenses – her snark, sarcasm, and humor, to name a few. She was good at deflection, and he had picked up on her barriers from the first day they met. What this told him was that she was a lot more vulnerable than she wanted people to see.

While she had shown a talent for subterfuge in her refusal to cooperate with his interrogation, he didn’t think it extended to her emotions. The proof of that was in her attitude towards him. The second he started treating her with more kindness, she’d dropped a lot of her posturing. He had to admit Romanov had been right about that. But beyond keeping her physically safe, how far would Skye trust him?

Deciding to test a theory, he stood up. “I’m going to get more napkins. Do you need anything?”

She shook her head, holding up her spoon full of rice and pork. “Here, try this.”

He took the offered bite of food and then walked across the plaza towards the food trucks. He took his time, automatically scanning the area and the people populating the plaza and adjacent park. Due to the early hour, there were a lot of young families milling about as well as a few teenagers, and he found himself watching the younger couples. They all had their little habits; small tells that showed how they felt about each other. Some couples walked with their arms around each other while others held hands, and a few couples standing in line at the food truck were hugging.

These were details that he and Skye needed to work on, and it was imperative that they get them right because her ex-boyfriend was a factor. He didn’t get the sense that Skye was still in love with him, if she ever had been. That was a relief as it was one potential problem averted.

Regardless, Miles Lydon was another variable. He obviously cared about Skye since he’d taken the trouble to arrange her interview with Ian Quinn. Most men wouldn’t do that for an ex-girlfriend unless there were still feelings in play. Skye had been the one to end the relationship, so he didn’t think Miles would be happy to see her show up with a fiancé. All of this would affect how closely Miles paid attention to them as a couple. If something was off, he might pick up on it and become suspicious of other things.

Ward collected the napkins and walked back towards Skye. When he reached the table, he slipped his hand underneath her hair, caressing the back of her neck as he kissed the top of her head.

Skye promptly dropped her fork, visibly startled. “Geez – a little warning before you do things like that Mr. Stealth Mode.”

Her reaction was pretty much what he’d expected. Ignoring the unexpected warmth he’d felt when he touched her, he dropped the napkins on the table and sat down across from her once more. “That’s why we need intimacy exercises, Skye. It’s not about sex – it’s about being able to convince people we have an intimate relationship, both emotionally and physically. Look around.” He gestured to the other couples in the area. “Couples touch each other, look at each other in certain ways; they have inside jokes. Now imagine that we’re out somewhere and we run into your friend Miles. Let’s say I make an unexpected move and you react the same way that you just did. What would he think?”

She sighed. “That something weird was going on. I get it, it’s just… not what I’m used to. I’m sorry I don’t have a fiancée switch you can flip or whatever it is you specialists do in these situations.”

“We’re not robots, Skye. We train and we learn to use every tool at our disposal, no matter what situation we find ourselves in.”

“Have you done this before? Faked an engagement or pretended to have a girlfriend or something?” Skye pushed her bowl across to him and passed him an extra spoon.

“A couple of times. I was fake married once, but most of the time specialists work alone or in tactical teams depending on the situation.” He took a bite of the rice and pork.

“You had a wife? I thought you said you never lived with anyone.”

“That was a short term op, just under two weeks,” he told her. “It was nothing like what we’re about to do.”

Propping her chin on her hand, she pointed her spoon at him. “Oh no – I want to know more about your ex-wife. I mean, she was the first one to get you to the altar. Suddenly, our engagement feels a little less special.”

“Is everything a joke to you?” He was beginning to wonder what it would take to make Skye see the mission as seriously as he did.

“Not everything,” she said, shrugging. “So I guess this means you’ve done these intimacy exercises before.”

“Once. I think Romanov just wanted to mess with me, to be honest.” Natasha Romanov occasionally had a downright bent sense of humor. He’d learned that firsthand working with her off and on over the years.

Skye’s mouth fell open. “You – with _her_? The Black Widow? And she was your wife?”

“Fake wife – not real, remember?” He cut a piece of his brisket and popped it into her open mouth. “Honestly, we could use more than two days for this. We’ll be driving to California next Friday and after we arrive, we have the next week to settle into our new house. Now might be the best time to work on getting our story as a couple straight.”

“Wow, you make it sound so romantic.” She reached for more of his beef brisket. “Was it that kind of sweet talk that convinced Romanov to marry you? Because us normal girls are usually happy with flowers.”

Ward put his fork down, wondering if she was deliberately trying to get a reaction out of him or if it was just second nature to her at this point. “Do you trust Miles?”

Skye looked up at him, looking confused by the sudden change of topic. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Wrong answer,” he replied flatly.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I don’t mean with our secrets, but in general I trust him. I’ve known him long enough to know he would never do anything to hurt me.”

Which told him more than she probably meant to reveal. Skye’s past was still a big mystery to him. He’d looked her up in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database only to find that her file was locked – level 9 and above clearance only. He could probably get at least some information from Coulson, but he wanted her to tell him about it. And the only way she would do that is if she trusted him.

He chose his words carefully. “When you do field work, you can’t place your trust in anyone except your team. So you can’t trust Miles, or Ian Quinn, or the nice housewife down the street who bakes cookies and delivers them to the new neighbors. You and me? We’re the team on this op. That means you have to learn how to trust me and I have to learn how to trust you. I am trying to be as honest as I can with you, but it’s not easy for me either. I usually work alone and I prefer it that way.”

Her eyes dropped down to her bowl as she pushed the food around with her fork. “And now you’re stuck with me, and I don’t have any field training. You’re probably worried I’m going to blow it or turn out to be a mole for Rising Tide or something.”

“The problem is that I don’t know you,” he explained. “I trust Coulson, and I know that Hill and Koenig would never have vetted you if they thought you were a risk. I’m not worried about you being a mole, Skye. But your inexperience with field work is a liability on this mission and I’m trying to do what I can to mitigate the risks here. I need you to meet me halfway. Can you do that?”

She looked up at him, a tentative smile on her face. “I can try. I know I can be obnoxious. It’s just how I deal with things that worry me. There, your first insight into my personality.”

He’d already figured that out, but it was encouraging to hear her admit it. “So the more irritating you are, the more something’s bothering you?”

“Pretty much. What about you? How do you deal with things that worry or bother you?”

_Eliminate them_ , he thought. Somehow he doubted that was the answer she was looking for. “If it’s not something I can fix or change, I compartmentalize it. Sometimes working out helps relieve the stress.”

“Not a talker, then.”

“Generally, no. Are you finished?” he asked, nodding at her food. He’d already finished about half of the brisket on his plate while they talked, so he closed the container. She nodded and together they gathered their trash and disposed of it.

When Ward held out his hand, she took it. “Why don’t we walk for a little while? The river runs along the other side of the park, and there’s a nice walking trail. It’s usually where I run when I’m in town.”

They walked quietly through the well-lit plaza and park. It was early May, and the weather was still that perfect mix of warm days and cool evenings. When they reached the walking trail by the river, Skye suddenly stepped in closer and slipped her arm around his waist.

“Is this okay?” she asked. She was still stiff and awkward next to him, but she was making an effort.

Ward nodded and pushed his own feelings of awkwardness aside, concentrating on the feeling of Skye tucked into his side. It was different, though not necessarily in a bad way. He wrapped his arm around her, and his hand brushed against her hair before settling against her waist.

They kept walking, and Skye gradually relaxed against him. The hand that had been gripping his jacket slipped underneath, and her thumb hooked into his pocket. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-one. My birthday is in January. You?”

“Twenty-five. My birthday was last month. I’ve always celebrated it on the fifteenth, but the orphanage guessed about the date. I was only about two months old when I was dropped off at St. Agnes – no note, no name, no date of birth.” Her tone was light, but her fingers were curled against him in a way that betrayed how difficult the topic was.

“Did the orphanage give you the name Skye?” he asked.

She laughed. “Yeah, no. I picked that. They called me Mary Sue Poots, if you can believe that. You have no idea how happy I was to erase her from the system and start over.”

That explained why S.H.I.E.L.D. found nothing on her after she was brought in. “How old were you when you left?”

“Sixteen. The only thing I regret is the high school dropout part, but I’ve been studying for my GED. It was Coulson’s idea, and Fitz and Simmons have been helping me study. I was thinking I might take it in the fall.”

They continued talking as they walked, but by silent, mutual agreement they stuck to neutral topics. It was another hour before they got back to his apartment, and Ward noticed how tired she looked as he unlocked the door.

Heading straight for the sofa, she slipped her shoes off and leaned back. “Let’s get it over with.”

Ward took his jacket off and hung it over the back of the armchair before sitting beside her on the sofa. “Get what over with?”

“The intimacy exercises,” she replied. “What are we dealing with exactly? We’ve held hands – that went okay. We _sort of_ pulled off the romantic walk by the river. What else?”

“We don’t have to do all of them in the first night,” he told her. “And it’s getting late.” He was feeling increasingly off balance after spending so much time with her, and he didn’t think touching her was going to help him pull back.

“Hey, you’re the one who pointed out that our time is short and my ex is a risk and all that. Just trying to meet you halfway here.” She made air quotes as she threw his words back at him. “At least tell me what they are.”

He ran a hand over the back of his head, tamping down his frustration. “They’re a lot of things – hugging, holding hands, kissing, cooking together, taking walks, working out or playing games together. There’s one that involves maintaining eye contact and matching your breathing with your partner’s breathing. That one can make people feel uncomfortable. Some agents do all of them, some only pick a few. Agents maintaining a long term op usually do more than others. In other words, it’s flexible and dependent upon the agents involved and their mission parameters.”

Skye was staring at him, an incredulous expression on her face. “That sounds like an _actual_ relationship, not a pretend one. Is that what you did with Agent Romanov? How do you keep that from being… weird? Too real?”

“If you’re asking if lines can be crossed, I’m sure it happens sometimes,” he said. “It wasn’t a problem with Romanov because we’re both mission-first types.”

“But weren’t you attracted to her?”

Did she always ask so many questions? Ward wanted nothing more than to be done with the conversation for the night. “It’s different for every pair of agents and every cover.”

Apparently not satisfied with his attempt to close the conversation, she asked, “What about with real girlfriends? I mean, what’s your usual… routine?”

Ward stood up and crossed over to a small cabinet and pulled out a bottle of scotch. Grabbing two glasses, he sat down again and poured a finger for both of them. Passing her one, he raised his glass and took a long swallow. “Because of the work I do, I don’t have time for long term relationships. It wouldn’t be fair to any woman I got involved with because I’d have to lie. All the time.”

Skye nodded knowingly. “So you’re that guy. The one who’s out the door before the sun’s up.”

He didn’t want to talk about that. When she held out her glass, he poured them both a double.

Taking her glass, Skye sipped it slowly. “I’ve only had a few relationships, and Miles was the most serious one. When we were together, I was impulsive. I wanted to keep things fun. I knew he was making plans that involved both of us – part of me wanted it, part of me wanted to run, and I chose running. And here we are.”

“People get married for a lot of reasons,” he said, looking at her carefully. “Why would _you_ want to get married? That’s going to matter if you’ve been gun-shy in the past.”

“That is a very good question. I think…” she paused, twisting the glass in her hands and staring at the amber liquid. After a long moment, she continued, “If Miles thinks I’m in love – like head over heels, completely gone in love – with someone who makes me feel safe? I think he’ll buy it. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen him, and I haven’t had any contact with anyone from my former life in that time. He doesn’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing or who I’ve been with.”

Head over heels. Ward drained his glass as he considered what she’d just told him. That would not be an easy sell for someone like Skye. He was beginning to realize that beneath her snarky bravado, she wore her vulnerabilities on her sleeve. She was a woman afraid to want things for herself, and she had no idea how much they actually had in common.

“It’s late,” he finally said, keeping his eyes on his glass. “We have a lot to do tomorrow, so why don’t you go ahead and get ready for bed.”

Skye took a breath. “Bed. Right.”

He could feel her eyes on him; when he didn’t say anything, she stood up and headed to the bedroom.

Ward gathered their glasses and took them to the kitchen, returned the scotch to the cabinet, and logged in to the agency’s secure server. The operations department had two houses for them to choose from; both were in similar neighborhoods located a short distance from Quinn Worldwide. He’d need to go over the blueprints and satellite images of the neighborhoods tomorrow for risk assessment before they made a decision. They’d also have to order furniture and make sure everything was ready for the movers by Thursday.

When he heard the water cut off upstairs, followed by the sound of a hair dryer, he waited another ten minutes before making his way up the stairs. Skye was sitting cross-legged on the bed wearing a tank top and shorts, her back to the door as she brushed her hair. Ward paused in the doorway and watched the brush slide through the long, honey brown strands. Her hair was beautiful. And soft – he recalled the way it had felt brushing against the back of his hand as they walked.

Walking to his dresser, he grabbed shorts and a T-shirt and walked into the bathroom. The whole room smelled like her, a combination of her citrus shampoo and something richer. A look at the products on the ledge of the bathtub showed a cherry blossom and vanilla scented container of body wash, and the matching bottle of body lotion was on the counter next to his aftershave.

He looked through the things she’d left in the bathroom, committing them to memory – the brand of her shampoo and deodorant, the bath shop where she bought her body wash and lotion, the type of razor she used. He noticed a purple, synthetic mesh bath pouf hanging on the towel rack. It was dripping, so he shook out the excess water, drying it on the edge of her towel which hung carelessly off the towel rack.

He took a minute to wipe up the water and straighten her towel before glancing at the sink. More water was sprinkled along the bathroom counter, and he noticed a few strands of hair stuck to the countertops. It figured that Skye was a little bit messy since they were essentially opposites in habit and routine.

After cleaning up he showered quickly and dressed for bed. He usually only wore boxers, but he had a feeling that might make Skye nervous, and it was the first night. She wasn’t an agent who could just dive straight into the nitty gritty of hashing out this type of cover.

Ward opened the bathroom door to find Skye was already on the far side of the bed, propped up against two pillows and doing something on her tablet. She’d turned off the overhead light but had left the two bedside lamps on.

She looked up as he walked across the room to throw his dirty clothes in the hamper and place his shoes in the closet. “I figured the super spy would want to sleep closest to the door. You know, just in case there’s a zombie apocalypse or something.”

She was right about that. “Do you know how to shoot?”

“Do water guns count?”

He looked at her, grinning at him over the top of her tablet. “No.”

“Then you should probably stay over there. Maybe the zombies will be fooled by you and your hardware long enough for me and my brains to get away.”  She set her tablet on the night stand and reached up to click off the lamp.

Ward slid under the covers on his side, turning off the lamp before relaxing back against his pillow. It had been a long day and tomorrow would likely be another one, so they both needed their rest. However, now that he was in the bed, all he could think about was the woman mere inches away from him. He couldn’t feel her but his entire bed smelled like Skye now, and it didn’t exactly promote relaxation.

_Put it in a box_. He called to mind his training, concentrating on each muscle group and relaxing his body in stages. He kept his breathing steady, even, and just when he was beginning to drift off, he heard her.

“Psst.”

He opened his eyes, irritated that he’d have to start over. “Go to sleep, Skye.”

“I am but I wanted to tell you something.”

“What?” he asked with a sigh.

“It’s possible I kick in my sleep.” She sounded cheerful as she told him that, and he heard the sound of her yawning. “Good night.”

In spite of himself, he couldn’t help smiling. “Good night.”

**Up Next – Ward and Skye start building their cover, but their personality differences are making domesticity difficult. In other words – fun times! :)**


	4. Chapter 4

** Chapter 4 **

Skye opened her eyes and stretched, peering blearily at the clock on Ward’s side of the bed. It was only seven, a groan worthy hour in her opinion, especially when she hadn’t slept well. She’d tried, but in the end she merely lay on her side of the bed and tried not to stare at the dark outline of Ward just a few inches away.

Despite her warning about kicking in her sleep, she hadn’t been able to relax enough to fall asleep until somewhere around two in the morning. Apparently Ward didn’t have the same problem since she’d heard him get up and leave the apartment at six. She must have dozed off again because now she could hear noises downstairs. Rolling over, she set her tablet alarm for eight-thirty and pulled the covers over her head.

The extra ninety minutes helped, and she woke to her alarm feeling a little more alert. She got up and stumbled to the bathroom, noticing that Ward had already been there. She guessed that like Tripp, he got up early and ran or worked out on a daily basis. She hoped that wasn’t one of the things he wanted them to do together.

Washing her face and brushing her teeth helped her feel a little more human. She pulled on a lightweight hoodie, twisted her hair up to get it out of her way, and padded barefoot downstairs. Ward sat on the sofa with a couple of folders in front of him and his laptop open as he made notes on a legal pad. He was dressed casually again in jeans and a black T-shirt. She noticed that both fit his tall, muscular frame nicely.

Skye curled into the corner of the sofa beside him. “You look busy. What are you doing?”

“Risk assessment,” he told her, looking up from his papers. “There are two houses in two different neighborhoods that we can choose from. I’m looking at satellite photos of the layout for each neighborhood, checking crime statistics, and reviewing background checks for the neighbors. I’d actually like you to look over the background checks too, see if anything jumps out at you or if you can find something that’s not in here.”

“Doesn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. do that?” Skye knew they did because she’d been tasked with looking up this very information before. As a consultant she’d never been given mission details, but they’d been happy to give her plenty of grunt work.

“Rule number one of field work – never trust that someone else did something as carefully as you would,” he told her. “You should be familiar with every detail of the mission.”

He had a valid point, but she wondered how often the field agents redid the work she herself spent hours on. “So basically you’re saying that every time my supervisor sent me a stack of folders just like those, I wasted hours of my time doing something that someone else was just going to do all over again?”

“It’s not a waste, Skye. Sometimes it comes down to little things like an agent’s personal preferences in a neighborhood, how much privacy they think they’ll have or how easily they’d be able to make a getaway if their cover is blown. Having someone else do the research first means the agent’s time isn’t wasted on locations that are a problem for other reasons.”

“So what’s the verdict?” she asked, suddenly curious about the house they’d be living in.

Rubbing his hand over his jaw, he said, “They’re both equal in terms of safety and egress points. My assessment of the background checks is that the neighbors at the La Brea location might be nosier, but you can do your own analysis there.”

Skye leaned towards his computer. “Did they send pictures?”

Nodding, he clicked on a folder and pulled up a series of photos of a two bedroom ranch style home. From the eat-in kitchen to the garden off the patio, it looked comfortable and very like the home of a young family. However, it was the second home that made her breath catch.

She’d never seen a house that looked so much like a picture from one of the storybooks she’d read at the orphanage. Built from sand colored stone, the split level house had a Spanish tile roof and chocolate brown garage doors and trim. A red brick walkway led to the front door and green shutters framed the windows, of which there were many.

Clicking through the photos confirmed the house would be full of light; like Ward’s apartment, it had a more open floor plan downstairs. The kitchen wasn’t large but appeared to have been newly remodeled and featured an island and an attached dining area. The living room was spacious, and the bonus room overlooking the garden would be perfect for an office. Upstairs there were two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a smaller room that was probably meant to be an office or a playroom for children.

“You like this one.”

Ward’s voice startled her, and she quickly clicked out of the folder. “It doesn’t matter.” She’d never had a house like that and she couldn’t afford to let herself want something that wasn’t meant to be hers.

“It’s a nice area of La Brea,” he commented. “You’re looking at a half hour commute depending on traffic, and you can stay off the freeway.”

“I said it doesn’t matter,” she told him. Skye stood up and walked into the kitchen, searching the cupboards until she found the coffee mugs. Ward had already made coffee, so she poured a cup and added a splash of milk since he didn’t have any cream in the fridge.

When she turned around, he was standing in the doorway watching her, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I can look over the background checks and run my own searches after breakfast if you want.”

He nodded, crossing to the coffee pot to refill his own cup. “I like the La Brea house, too. Unless you find something in the background checks the other analyst missed, I think that’s our best option.”

She sipped her coffee slowly. “You probably grew up in a house. Parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, the whole deal.”

“Yes – in Massachusetts. Parents, two brothers and a sister. But we were never really close and it’s been years since I was in contact.”

There was no self-pity in his simple recitation of the facts, and Skye wondered what his story was. Military school at sixteen didn’t sound like such a great deal, either. “There was a house once – the Brodys. I was nine.”

“How long?” he asked.

“A month.” She shrugged, taking another sip of her coffee. “They said I wasn’t a good fit. They were probably right.” That was when she’d stopped hoping for things like a house and a family because it was easier to never hope for things than it was to be constantly disappointed in the outcome. Only later did she learn the real reasons why she was shuffled around like so much unwanted baggage.

“But S.H.I.E.L.D. is?” When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I looked up your file, Skye, and it’s locked – level 9 clearance. I could request the information through official channels or talk to Coulson, but I’d rather not.”

“The file is bogus anyway,” Skye said. She’d known she would have to talk to Ward about this eventually. “AC’s idea. Could we maybe shelve that talk until after breakfast?”

To his credit, he backed off immediately. “I could eat. I had a protein shake before my run but no breakfast yet. I also stopped at the grocery store yesterday before I picked you up.”

Skye opened the fridge and poked through the shelves. He had juice and milk and the makings for omelets. She pulled out those items and set them out on the counter before crossing to the pantry.

“Huh.” She stared at the rows of perfectly lined up cans and boxes. They were arranged by size, all labels facing forward, and not one appeared to be out of place. “Are you, by any chance, OCD? Because if you are, we’re going to have a problem.”

“I’m not OCD. I just like order,” Ward replied with that hint of exasperation she was becoming accustomed to.

“It’s just that your bed was made with hospital corners, and now this,” she said, waving her hand at the pantry as she looked at him over her shoulder. “It’s like that Julia Roberts movie with the OCD, psycho husband. You’re not going to shoot me if I mess up your system, are you?”

“I didn’t shoot you for leaving water and hair all over the bathroom last night,” he told her dryly.

She pursed her lips and nodded. “Fair point. How about a compromise? I promise to clean up after myself in the bathroom and you let me arrange the pantry in a way that doesn’t give me the wiggins.”

“Do whatever you want with the pantry. Now, breakfast – do you cook?” Ward asked as he washed his hands at the sink.

“Kind of – I’m learning, anyway. When I lived on my own it was mostly whatever I could eat from a can, sandwiches, or something that could be heated in a convenience store microwave,” Skye said, watching him pull a pan from the cabinet by the stove. “I hit the shelters occasionally and couch surfed before I had my van. I’ve never had a real home with a kitchen until Coulson gave me the apartment at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Hand me a knife from that drawer,” he said, indicating the drawer behind her.

She pulled out the knife and passed it to him.

“I’ll handle the omelets if you’ll get the toast ready and set the table,” he said. “We can talk about our cover while we eat.”

Twenty minutes later they were seated at the table discussing the details of their cover as a couple.

“Where did you go after you left Miles in Austin?” Ward asked.

“I figured Miles would expect me to go to California so I headed east,” she said, taking a bite of her toast. “But I had trouble with my van and didn’t make it past Tennessee. By the time I’d saved the money to fix the van, I heard the chatter about the Centipede project and went back to L.A. In case you’re fuzzy on the details, that’s where you threw a bag over my head and kidnapped me.”

“Arrested you,” he corrected her.

“Yeah, you say tomato, I say violated my civil liberties,” she joked.

Ward, as usual, ignored her snarking. “According to my military records, I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, so we’ll say your van broke down in Fayetteville, North Carolina. How did we meet? A bar?”

“Eww, no. Military bars are not my scene,” she told him, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Whenever I need extra cash, I post flyers offering my services fixing computers – mostly removing viruses, malware, speeding up systems, that kind of thing.”

“You invited strangers into your van?” he looked concerned. “Skye, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? It’s an invitation to sexual predators.”

“I’m not an idiot, Ward,” she protested. “I usually set up shop in a local park, a coffee shop, an Internet café – someplace public. Miles knows I do that, so us meeting that way is way more plausible than you picking me up in a bar.”

“Fine. You fixed my computer,” he said. “Then what?”

“You probably lectured me on personal safety and city crime statistics,” she said, rolling her eyes as she scooped up the last bite of her omelet. “How deep do we need to go with this?”

“Deep. We may never need the details, but you’d be surprised by how often details like this come up. Our answers have to match.”

“Well, I don’t think love at first sight works for either of our personalities, so… we flirted, you asked me to dinner, I accepted. We hooked up a few times and what was supposed to be fun became something else. It’s basically a generic rom-com, but it could work.” She raised a brow. “The big question is this. Why would a guy like Grant Ward, super serious super soldier, want to date a free spirit like me?”

Ward stood up and gathered their empty plates. “You’re beautiful and you’re smart. You have a sense of fun and adventure and you’re idealistic. Maybe a super serious super soldier would value those qualities enough to leave the military and settle down.”

Skye smiled at his words, an unexpected warmth blooming within her as she followed him into the kitchen. “How do you know I’m idealistic?”

Ward put the dishes in the sink and turned to face her, his hands braced against the sink behind him. “I don’t agree with the Rising Tide or their methods because I’ve been in this business long enough to know that people keep secrets for a reason, and sometimes secrets need to be protected more than they need to be revealed. But as irritating as you were the day I arrested you…”

“Kidnapped me,” she cut in.

He sighed. “I could tell that you believed you were helping to make the world better in your own way.”

“Wow. I did not expect you to say that,” she said in surprise. “If it makes you feel any better, I get it now. I mean, I know my clearance level is practically non-existent, but I’ve been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for a year, and I’ve met people like AC, FitzSimmons and Tripp. Big things have happened and without the agency, a lot more people probably would have died in the Battle of New York. We’re all doing our part to make the world a little safer. And I owe S.H.I.E.L.D. for saving me.”

His brows drew together. “Saving you? From what?”

“Here, I’ll wash, you dry,” Skye said, nudging past him and running water in the sink. “I wasn’t lying when I said I let you find me. The truth is, I wanted to get inside the agency because I thought they knew something about my parents. After I left St. Agnes, I started looking into my past. Eventually I found a S.H.I.E.L.D. document, but all of the information was redacted.”

He took the plate she handed him. “This is what you told Coulson after I left the interrogation room, isn’t it?”

“I would have told you if you hadn’t been such an asshat that day. Long story short, I offered my skills in return for Coulson’s help finding out what happened to my parents. At first the only information we could find was that a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Linda Avery dropped me off at the orphanage. For a while I thought she might have been my mother.”

“But she wasn’t.”

Skye shook her head, scrubbing hard at the stainless steel pan. “Agent Avery was part of a team sent to the Hunan Province in China. They were investigating a small village that was destroyed in search of something the agency labeled an 0-8-4.”

“An object of unknown origin,” Ward said, taking the pan from her and drying it slowly.

“What the team found out was that all of the villagers were killed trying to protect the 0-8-4 from – I don’t know what, to be honest. Agent Avery and her team weren’t lead on the investigation but when they lost contact with the lead team, they went in and found everyone dead. The senior agent got away and hid under a bridge, but he’d been shot and bled out before Avery’s team got there. He was holding a sleeping baby when they found him.”

“You were the baby?”

She had to give him credit for his calm response to the information she was laying out.

She took a deep breath, her vision blurring as she tried to keep the tears back. “I was the baby, and the baby was the 0-8-4. All of those people, and probably my parents, died protecting me that day, and I don’t know why. The back-end team didn’t know who was looking for me. And it’s possible it was a mistake or they were after my parents, but since we don’t know who they were…” her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “The team brought me to the U.S. but after that, they were being picked off one by one. Agent Avery left me at the orphanage and the nuns were instructed to keep moving me around to different foster homes. Then Agent Avery was killed, too. One agent from the team is still alive but he’s been in hiding for twenty-five years. It’s a miracle Coulson was able to find him at all. That’s why I’m working for S.H.I.E.L.D. now. They were the family I never knew I had watching out for me.”

She felt Ward’s hands on her shoulders. “Skye, you were just a baby. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe not, but sometimes I wonder if one life is worth the lives of so many, you know? I feel like I owe it to them to make my life count for something.” She used the heels of her hands to wipe away the tears trickling down her cheeks and turned to look up at him with a small smile. “The only people who know that story are Coulson, Commander Hill and Director Fury. As much as I’d like to know more, I understand that it’s too dangerous to keep looking into it. Coulson created the level 9 file as a cover, listing me as an asset he turned while I was with Rising Tide. My file is full of highly classified missions that were aided by information I gave to him, but none of it is real.”

“And the level 9 lock keeps your name out of any inter-agency or government reports that might reveal you’re now working with S.H.I.E.L.D.” Ward added.

“Mary Sue Poots doesn’t exist anymore but Coulson doesn’t want to take any chances. And the agent who got away doesn’t know anything about me, either, so I don’t think I have to worry about being found at this point.”

“This explains why I was assigned as your partner instead of a regular field agent. I thought it was because of the Gravitonium,” he said.

“AC is probably just being paranoid,” she said with sigh. “It’s been twenty-five years. Still, I doubt he would let me anywhere near field work if there were any other options. He told me to talk to you about it, that you needed to know even if you don’t have the right clearance.”

“He was right. Your job is finding out what you can about Ian Quinn and the research he’s doing, but my job is protecting you. I can’t do that if there are secrets.”

His expression was serious, and his hands were resting on her shoulders, squeezing gently. Instinctively she knew those hands were safe, would keep _her_ safe. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Agent Grant Ward was far from the robot she’d accused him of being. A robot wouldn’t have cared which house she wanted to live in for the mission, and he certainly wouldn’t have offered her comfort. He was too serious, too locked down, but he was a man; a man who, no matter how well he hid it, cared.

She could work with that.

“I like snuggies,” she blurted, and the bewildered expression on his face made her want to laugh.

“What?”

“Snuggly hugs,” she explained. “I’m good at stealth snuggies, ambush snuggies – it’s kind of my thing.”

Ward was trying to maintain his serious expression but was failing miserably as a grin tugged at his lips. “Like sharing food, huh?”

She shrugged, smiling back. “You asked before, about couple things. That’s one of mine.”

He looked at her for a minute, as if studying her, and then slid his hands over her shoulders and pulled her closer.

Skye immediately went in for the snuggle hug, wrapping her arms around his waist and burrowing into him. He was just as firm as he looked, and so tall that her head fit nicely against his chest. It was comforting though not entirely comfortable. She changed the position of her arms but noticed that his hands were still on her waist, creating some distance between their lower bodies.

She raised her head and looked at him. “Are you trying to leave room for Jesus? ‘Cause that’s not really how snuggies work.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he stated, though he did slide his hands around her back, allowing their hips more contact.

“I think you were right before when you said we don’t have time for modesty,” Skye told him. “I don’t remember the exact words, but that was the gist. I’m not a virgin or the shrinking violet type. Yes it’s a strange situation, but we have less than a week before we have to convince the nosy neighbors we’re in love.”

“In love doesn’t necessarily mean public displays of affection all the time,” Ward pointed out.

“No, but I like some PDAs. If we don’t PDA at all, Miles will definitely call BS on our engagement. And honestly, if we’re going to be in this for a while, I want to be comfortable enough for a hug on bad days, or good days, or just because it’s a day that ends in –y. Here I have Jemma and Fitz, and I ambush snuggied Coulson in his office once. But there? I can’t have real friends. That leaves you.”

“You ambush snuggied Agent Coulson? And he didn’t mind?” Ward sounded amused.

“Eh, I think he secretly liked it. Kind of like Fitz – he complains when Jemma and I snugg him, but it’s all bluster.” They were still locked in the same position, and Skye sighed. “This is getting weird, isn’t it?”

“Little bit.” He pulled away and stepped back. “Super serious super soldiers probably aren’t comfortable with snuggies.”

What he really meant was that he wasn’t comfortable with them. “I’m guessing specialists don’t hug it out at the end of the day?”

That got another smile. “No. Specialists don’t spend a lot of time with other people. When we work together, we’re all cut from the same cloth, have the same fundamental characteristics. We train, we get the job done. There’s no room for anything else.”

“What about when you’re undercover or off the clock? You have to make connections somewhere.”

Ward leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Undercover assignments aren’t the place to make connections, Skye. There are targets and there are potential threats, and that’s it. If I lose focus, even for a second, the whole mission could go south. On this assignment, the mission going south could mean you getting hurt and that won’t happen on my watch.”

She nodded slowly. “But off the clock?”

“When you get used to seeing the world in black and white, threats and targets, you don’t turn it off at the end of the day.”

His world view was disconcerting, but Skye took a moment to consider what he’d just said because she wanted to understand what made Grant Ward tick.

“You compartmentalize,” she guessed. That explained his previous relationship history. He spent most of his time alone or with other specialists, and suddenly she was back to worrying about how they were going to make this work. “If we’re not compatible, how is this going to work?”

“Trust me, I’ve done undercover ops before. I can sell my cover.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she said. “I’m sure you can turn it on and off, but I’m talking about the fact that we’re going to be living together for a long time – a year, maybe longer. I don’t just need a specialist, Ward. If you’re the only one I can trust, I need you to be a friend like Tripp would have been.”

“I heard that Agent Triplett was assigned to the Triskelion, but I didn’t realize you were friends. Was it more than that?” he asked curiously.

“No, it’s not like that. He lives in the same building, and he sometimes hangs out with us – me and FitzSimmons. I think he might actually have a little thing for Jemma, but he’s not admitting to it.”

“We’re not really compatible,” he allowed, “and we have a long way to go to really know each other. But it’s only been twenty-four hours, and we’re not doing too badly. It’s not a terrible start.”

Skye recalled her certainty just the day before that this forty-eight hour confinement was going to be horrible. He was right – they weren’t doing too badly at all. “You said it would help if we had longer, right? After I look over those files and work my hacking magic, I was thinking I could go back to my apartment and get the rest of my things, pack up what I won’t need. I mean, there’s really no point in going back just for a few days.”

“Okay. I need to talk to Coulson anyway, so I’ll drive you.”

Ward went back to his mission planning, and Skye went upstairs to get her laptop and tablet, settling down at the table to work. Occasionally she found herself distracted by him – his hands moving across the keyboard, his strong profile, his serious expression as he devoted his full concentration to the task.

As he’d said, they had a long way to go. But for the first time, she felt hopeful that if they could continue to meet each other halfway, this assignment might not be so terrible after all.

**A/N: The 0-8-4 conversation was originally in chapter 5. Then I was reading chapters 4 and 5 and it seemed out of place, so I swapped some things around. I felt like opening up here worked better. I also hope this isn't moving too slowly? There will be some little time jumps in future installments, but I felt like sufficient character development (and relationship development) was important here to set the tone of their dynamic, their interactions, etc.**

**Up Next: More cover details, house paint and furniture, FitzSimmons, intimacy exercises, and an actual date night.**


	5. Chapter 5

** Chapter 5 **

Ward tried to concentrate on his book, but he’d been staring at the same page for at least five minutes. Rather than seeing the words of Marlantes, his eyes kept drifting to the table where Skye sat with the two scientists, Fitz and Simmons. He’d met them before, though he hadn’t recalled which one was which until today when Skye formally introduced them.

After speaking to Coulson, the two men had gone to Skye’s apartment to find Fitz and Simmons with her. They were boxing up a few non-essentials like lamps and linens she wouldn’t need, and she was packing the rest of her belongings into one large suitcase. He’d been a bit surprised she didn’t have more, but he reasoned that living out of her van had made accumulating possessions difficult. It was the sad look on her face as she glanced around the room and hugged her friends that twisted some long forgotten feeling in his gut.

_Ward stood quietly with Coulson as Skye zipped up her suitcase._

_“It’s kind of depressing that my entire life is in one bag,” she said. “On the bright side, it’s a bigger bag than I had in the system.”_

_“I have your documents, Skye,” Coulson told her as he held up a plain, manila folder. “Bank account, credit cards, driver’s license, social security card, passport – all for the state of North Carolina.”_

_“I have aliases you know,” she reminded him, taking the folder and pulling out one of the papers._

_“I know, but these are official documents, not forged. They’re just as real as mine or Ward’s or the little old lady who lives down the street,” he explained._

_Skye suddenly looked up from the document she was holding. “Skye Coulson?”_

_Coulson shrugged. “You needed a last name for Quinn Worldwide, and – oof!”_

_Skye had launched herself at Coulson, hugging him fiercely. “Ambush snuggie,” she told him. “Thanks, AC.”_

_Ward watched, amused, as Coulson patted Skye’s back a little awkwardly. When Skye let go, she hugged Fitz, who squirmed but still looked pleased, and then Simmons. He was beginning to realize that the relationships Skye had forged with these people went beyond co-workers and friends. They had become family to one another. It was what she wanted from their partnership as well, and he didn’t know if he had it in him to give her that._

_Coulson took that moment to look at Ward sternly. “Take care of her.”_

_He nodded as the older man left the room and then turned his attention back to the trio before him._

_“I just wish we had more time,” Simmons was saying mournfully. “It will be ages before I can see you again.”_

_“Well, there’s always video chat,” Skye said. “I can set up a secure link and bounce it off so many servers that it’s untraceable. Would that be okay?” Skye asked, casting an uncertain glance in his direction._

_Ward considered the question. “As long as you don’t discuss anything mission related and keep it casual, it’s possible. Let me check into it and I’ll let you know.” Looking at the two scientists, he said, “And uh – if you want to come to dinner tonight, that would be fine with me.”_

The invitation had been uncharacteristically impulsive on his part, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that was partially due to his new partner’s influence. They were a bit loud, but he didn’t regret the invitation because something so simple had made Skye very happy. It was hard to explain why that mattered, or how his views on the former hacktivist were shifting at a speed that made him uneasy.

When he met her she was both a target and a potential threat, though she’d challenged both assumptions during his interrogation. Now she fit neither category. She wasn’t his adversary, but she also wasn’t a friend or a lover. Just as he’d told Romanov, she was his partner; but she also wanted to be his friend. She wanted him to be the support system she obviously had in Coulson and the two scientists, and he didn’t doubt she’d reciprocate if he gave her the opportunity. And he knew she’d never understand why he couldn’t afford that.

The four of them had walked down the block to visit the food trucks again before returning to Ward’s apartment. Now Simmons and Skye were looking at photos of the La Brea house and choosing furniture online. He was slightly impressed that he hadn’t even needed to remind her that the furniture shouldn’t be too new; she’d been surfing the second hand stores for the past two hours and arranging for it all to be picked up the next day.

“You don’t have to worry about furniture for every room,” Simmons was saying. “It stands to reason you two would have lived in an apartment, so you can leave the extra bedroom for later.”

When Skye raised a questioning brow in his direction, he nodded. “She’s right. Grant Ward has a two bedroom apartment near the base. It’s actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. cover, so anyone there will confirm they’ve seen us together if asked.”

“You’ve really gotta stop talking about yourself in the third person,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So how long were we living together?”

“My files have been adjusted to show that I was in town when you arrived. I shipped out a few months later and returned about three months ago. You said that was around the time you sold your van, right? So, living together for three months, and we can say engaged for two?”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I talked to Miles and Quinn about three weeks ago. I guess if you were getting out of the Army and we were getting engaged, it makes sense I’d start looking for legit work. What about you?”

“Coulson wants me to try to get in with Quinn’s security department,” he told her. “But initially I think I can get away with taking a break. My finances are in good order and you’re working. And given your past, questionably legal activities, I’d want to be careful who I went to work for since any background you created for yourself wouldn’t hold up under stringent security checks. That rules out the big agencies that recruit from the Special Forces like the CIA and S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinn and Miles both know about your Rising Tide connection, so they wouldn’t expect me to be working for the government.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think soldiers made the kind of money you were banking,” she said.

“More than a decade of combat pay and bonuses, and then being deployed so often means nowhere to spend it,” he pointed out.

“My very own sugar daddy,” she teased with a grin. “Okay, we have a new mattress being delivered tomorrow, and there’s a bed and bath store nearby we can buy linens from. Then we just drop them off at the laundry, pick them up on Wednesday, and box them up. We also have a queen bed, a large dresser, and matching nightstands and lamps. There’s a walk-in closet so we’ll need to pick up hangers. That takes care of the master bedroom and bathroom.”

“Living room?” he asked.

“A sofa, two armchairs, a coffee table, a side table, one floor lamp and a table lamp, a bookcase, a flat screen TV,” she listed off. “Similar to what you have here. The kitchen things are new because I figured a bachelor gone half the year wouldn’t have a lot of that. I found a second hand dining room table and four chairs. No office furniture, though. I figured we can pick that up later. Oh, and I changed your color scheme.”

Ward stood up to look at the photos over her shoulder, but it wasn’t bad. She’d chosen a soft brown shade for the sofa and armchairs, and the tables and bookcase were a dark oak. “I can deal with brown.”

“I ordered pillows,” she told him. “Orange, two-toned brown, and green. The walls in the living room are neutral, but Jemma thought we could paint one wall a different color.”

“They call it an accent wall, and it would look lovely in that burnt orange shade,” Jemma supplied helpfully.

“And maybe we could paint the bedroom? Anything but neutral.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to remind her that this wasn’t really their house, but she looked so hopeful that he couldn’t do it. “Fine.”

“Yes! Thank you, honey.” She switched screens on her laptop, going back to the linen store. She and Jemma continued their discussion of color schemes, with Fitz occasionally chiming in. Ward returned to his book, suddenly grateful she had someone to bounce her home decorating ideas off besides him.

“What about a second car?” Skye asked.

“I have a motorcycle the moving company will pick up,” he said. “The SUV is new, so it should be a reliable vehicle for commuting. And it’s in both of our names.”

“Wow – Skye Coulson must have a sweet credit rating,” she said. “Not that I have a bad one – I just don’t have one. Oh, a washer and dryer – new or used?”

“New. The apartment complex had onsite laundry.”

He went back to reading, only peripherally aware of the chatter behind him. Maybe it was good that Skye was interested in the decorating. It was certainly something she’d have in common with young wives in the neighborhood. Painting a couple of the rooms was probably a good idea as well. Most of the house had been painted in neutral colors, though he recalled the kitchen was red. Skye would probably like that.

***

The following day was busy as they ran errands and picked up various items for the move. Ward had to admit that Skye’s taste wasn’t terrible. He didn’t care that much about the colors of towels and bedding, but he was grateful she didn’t seem to be the floral or fussy type.

In the end she picked out a rectangular wall painting in three parts to hang above the bed. The Asian design depicted several, graceful ivory birds against a red and black background. The duvet set was brown with subtle dark teal accents, and the sheets were ivory.

“We could paint the bedroom teal, or ivory and teal if you don’t want that much color,” she said. “The headboard and furniture are dark wood, and I can exchange the lamps I ordered, get the ones with red lampshades.”

Ward looked at the pillows she was putting in their cart – two brown ones that matched the duvet set as well as a large rectangular pillow with a red diamond pattern. “Do we actually need so many pillows? The living room is going to be full of them.”

“Yes, honey. We need the pillows.” Skye smiled at a lady who was looking at sheets and appeared to be amused by Ward. “Men, right?”

The woman laughed and Skye started pushing their cart to the front. “We’ll drop these things off at the laundry and hit the home store next.”

He sighed, running his hand over the back of his head. He supposed there were worse things than home decorating, but he honestly couldn’t imagine one at the moment. He also suspected Skye was having a little fun at his expense. He figured he was probably going to have to get used to that.

Two hours later, they were finally finished and seated at a small, family run Italian restaurant. Skye sipped her glass of wine as she glanced over the menu. “Lasagna. Definitely lasagna.”

When she looked up, Ward was studying her. “What?”

“I ducked into a little shop earlier and bought this,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a box.

Not just a box. A ring box.

“Is that…?”

“We’re engaged. Obviously you need a ring.” He placed the box on the table in front of her.

Skye picked up the box and opened it cautiously to find a simple white gold and diamond solitaire ring. The setting looked vintage, with delicate engraving along the band, and the diamond was probably a carat and a half, a size that wouldn’t overwhelm her small hands or get in her way when she was working.

“I liked that one,” Ward continued. “But if you want to exchange it, we can…”

“No,” she said, cutting him off. “I like it.” It was beautiful and for however long their assignment lasted, it was hers.

Ward took the box and pulled the ring from its resting place before taking her left hand. “Well, then Skye Coulson, let’s make this official.”

She laughed at that and tried to ignore the butterflies erupting in her stomach as he slid it onto her finger. When the clapping started, she looked around to see that they had caught the attention of the other patrons. Pulling her iPhone from her pocket, she slid into the booth beside Ward and asked the waiter to take a couple of photos, making sure the ring was on display against the dark leather of his jacket.

When the waiter handed her phone back, she looked up to see Ward watching her again, and she smiled. “Yeah, there isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t want a photo of her engagement moment. This baby will be framed and placed prominently in our house.”

When he just smiled, she realized that was the plan all along. “But you already knew that, which is why you gave me the ring here and not at your apartment.”

“Details are important, and now we have a story,” he said. “Undercover work is all about the story if you don’t want to trip yourself up.”

Sneaky Ward. “And that reminds me – we don’t have photos. We probably need at least a few. Surely we had a weekend getaway somewhere, at some point?”

“I have a green screen,” he said. “It’s big enough to use for photos like that. You wear a few different outfits and then insert backgrounds digitally.”

“Cool. We can do that tonight before they start delivering all our stuff tomorrow.” Skye looked down at her ring, turning her hand to admire how the diamond caught the light. “It’s kind of hilarious how this engagement story fits you so well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the whole ‘we talked about getting married so you need a ring’ deal,” she teased him. “Anyone who’s met you would probably believe that story. It’s such a guy thing.”

“How do you know I’m not a romantic at heart?” he challenged her.

She raised a brow at that. “I think we shouldn’t push the envelope of reality too much. Half-truths, right?”

He sat back to allow the waiter to set their meals before them while a woman refilled their wine glasses. “You’re learning.”

After dinner they went back to Ward’s apartment, pulled out the green screen, and got to work creating their relationship backstory. They kept it simple – a few weekend excursions and one camping trip that Skye swore would be their last.

“I’m not exactly nature girl,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Walking around on nice, even trails for a couple of hours? Fine. Living for days with no bathroom? Hell to the no. Also, the mosquitoes are the size of bats in the South. I was nearly eaten alive the couple of nights I spent in Alabama.”

“We need couple activities. Running?” He was busy packing up the camera and green screen as he spoke. He tossed her the memory card. “Can you upload these? I’ll send them over to Coulson and he’ll take care of adding the backgrounds we chose and printing some of each for frames or a photo album.”

“I’m also not running girl. I like dancing.” She smiled at the less-than-thrilled expression on his face. “What do you like to do in your free time?”

“I like reading. I’ve got a list of a hundred books I was given a long time ago by my S.O. but I only got around to it recently.”

“What are you reading now?” Maybe they could read some of the same books and talk about them.

“Matterhorn.” At her questioning look, he elaborated. “It’s about the Vietnam War.”

Or not. “Let me know if you move on to popular fiction. What else?”

“I like board games.”

“Really?” That surprised her. “What, like Monopoly or Clue?”

He shrugged. “Any of them. I have a box of them in the closet, so I figured we could take them with us.”

“Okay, game nights are established. Do you like music?”

“Sure. We can check out the live music venues together.” Ward said. “I like studying languages. It’s necessary for my work, but I’ve always enjoyed it.”

“How many languages do you speak?” She figured speaking two or three would be useful to a specialist.

“Six.”

His response was nonchalant, but she was impressed. “Wow. Most days I struggle with English.”

“I can help you study for the GED if you still want to take it in the fall,” he told her. “And I can help you brush up on your Spanish. We could always spend a weekend in Mexico this summer.”

The prospect of a Mexico trip brightened her mood. “We could do that?”

“Sure. We’ll also be living close to the ocean, so we can do beach days on the weekends. Do you swim?”

“I’m not the strongest swimmer, but I can swim well enough.” She’d learned after leaving the orphanage but never had as many opportunities to practice as she’d wanted.

Ward approached her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Running them down her arms, he gently squeezed her biceps. “A little strength training wouldn’t hurt.”

“Are you saying I’m fat? Because if you are, feel free to sleep on the sofa tonight,” she said, only half joking.

Looking exasperated, he said, “I didn’t say you were fat. Obviously you have a nice…”

Skye crossed her arms, waiting.

“Shape. But we could do some basic self-defense training if you’re interested. It wouldn’t hurt for you know a few defensive moves, enough to get away if you had to.”

She was intrigued by that idea. “Okay, I’m in. I also think we should have a regular date night – one night a week when we go out and be social together. Maybe we can double date with other nice couples from the neighborhood or from work. That’s good for our cover, right?”

“You’re right. Why don’t we start on Thursday? We’re leaving Friday morning, so we could use a date night to gauge how people react to us as a couple.”

“Aww, date night! More photo ops,” she joked, waving her phone. The details of their cover were coming together, and it surprised her that remembering them seemed so effortless. She supposed that was largely due to the fact that they were discussing and establishing the details together rather than reading dry facts from a mission objective.

She’d expected Ward to be the dry facts type, but spending so much time with him in the last few days was challenging many of her preconceptions. He was obviously dedicated to his job since he’d put aside his feelings of animosity and offered her a fresh start, one she’d taken gladly. He was also surprisingly adaptable to her moods and quirks, and even though she had no field training, he always considered her suggestions in a serious manner before either accepting them or offering valid reasons why they wouldn’t work.

There were worse ways to begin a relationship – or partnership, she reminded herself. She had to keep reminding herself of where to draw the line between reality and their cover. Looking down at the ring, she bit her lip and then slid it off and tucked it into her pocket. She had a feeling that reminders would be an essential part of her process over the next few months.

***

Wednesday and Thursday were both busy days. Skye checked off their items as they were delivered while Ward picked up their laundry and ran last minute errands on Wednesday. By the time the movers arrived on Thursday, they could barely navigate the downstairs area of the apartment, so Ward was grateful to see it all packed onto the truck and out of the way.

“Won’t it seem weird that the movers were coming from D.C.?” Skye asked, watching the movers load the last box.

He shook his head. “The moving manifest will say North Carolina because they’re with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Wow, they have their own moving company? Handy. Just how many cover businesses does the agency have, anyway?”

“A lot.” He tossed her a box. “If you’ll pack up the books and games down here, I’ll finish packing my things upstairs.”

She nodded and went to the closet to pull out his stack of board and card games, adding them to the pile of books in the corner.

It didn’t take him long to pack up his clothes and personal items. He glanced around the room and something on the nightstand sparkled, catching his attention. Walking around the bed, he saw Skye had left the engagement ring there, probably that morning.

He picked it up and studied it thoughtfully. He’d noticed her doing that the last couple of days. She’d wear it when they were out and then take it off when they were in the apartment. Considering their cover as a newly engaged couple, it was a dangerous habit she was getting into. He might not know much about engaged couples, but he felt reasonably certain that newly engaged women didn’t often remove their rings.

Ward returned the ring to the nightstand and pulled out his phone, dialing the number from memory. “I need a favor.”

***

Ward kept his hand on Skye’s back as they wove through the crowd of the bar, keeping a watchful eye on the other patrons. They seemed more hipster than hostile, but it was a new place for him, so he didn’t want to be caught off guard.

Skye gave their names and they were led to a reserved table near the small stage but still close to the bar. “Perfect.”

Ward pulled her chair out for her before taking a seat beside her rather than across the table. “You’ve been here before?”

She nodded, picking up the menu. “Me, Jemma and Fitz. Tripp even came once. They have good bands – Four on the Floor is here tonight.”

He’d seen the sign advertising the band made up of three men and a woman on their way in. “Cover band?”

“Mostly covers, some originals,” she told him as she scanned the appetizers and drinks. “But their covers span about thirty or forty years and some really good songs.”

They chose an appetizer plate to go with their drinks, and Ward slipped his arm around her, kissing her temple before getting up to go place their order. He didn’t miss the way she’d stiffened when he touched her. She didn’t jump nervously the way she had that first night, but it wasn’t the reaction of a loving fiancée.

A couple of hours later, he was sure he’d been right about her backsliding on their intimacy issues. Taking her ring off constantly had been his first clue, and tonight she was placing distance between them wherever she could. If he touched her hand or played with her fingers, she’d allow it for a brief time and then pull her hand away. It was the same if he put his arm around her, and she actively avoided dancing to any slow songs.

Maybe it was his fault for not pushing the intimacy exercises more, but the rest of the mission planning had been going so well that he’d let it slide. Obviously, that had been a mistake.

Her attention wandered to the next table and she poked his arm to get his attention. “That hottie over there is checking you out in a big way.”

“What?” Was she seriously suggesting that he hit on a random woman during their date night?

“Just saying, I don’t want to cramp your style if you want one last fling or something.” She was looking everywhere but at him, and her behavior was setting off all his internal alarms.

“You’re not my wingman, Skye. You’re supposed to be my fiancée.” His tone was gruffer than he meant for it to be, but he was starting to get irritated.

“Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry, though. She sounded flippant. “It was only a suggestion.”

Swallowing down the words he knew wouldn’t help the situation, he nodded at her drink. “One more?”

“Yeah sure,” she said, smiling before turning her attention back to the band.

Ward stood up and headed to the bar, holding his hand up to get the bartender’s attention before ordering a beer and another lemon martini for Skye.

“Rough night?” the red haired woman next to him asked, her tone sympathetic.

“What do you think?” he replied shortly.

“I think I don’t buy you two as an engaged couple, and that’s a hell of a problem to have since you’re on next week.” Natasha Romanov raised a brow at him, sipping her beer. “What the hell have you been doing this week?”

He folded his arms on the bar. “Damn it.” He’d known that was what she was going to say, but the confirmation only further annoyed him.

“Look,” Natasha continued. “It’s fixable because I think she’s pulling away to hide the fact she’s attracted to you. And you’re letting her because you’re hiding the fact that you’re attracted to her. Why aren’t you using this to your advantage?”

“Because she’s a civilian. It’s not the same as working with an agent, and I don’t like things getting complicated.” And that was it – Skye was a complication just waiting to happen.

Natasha finished off her beer and stood up. “I gave you my input, so the rest is on you. Get your head in the game, Ward. By the way, I have a stint at Stark’s company coming up. Maybe I’ll see you in California.”

***

Skye followed Ward into the apartment and slipped off her heels, sighing with relief. They looked great with skinny jeans but were hell to walk in. “Home sweet home, for one more night anyway. Do you want some water?”

“Yes.” Ward took off his jacket and walked into the living room.

Skye rolled her eyes. He’d been moody at the bar, and she wondered what bug was up his ass now. She hadn’t seen this side of him since last week. She sighed and walked into the kitchen, pulling two bottles of water from the fridge and closing the door. When she turned around, she was startled to find Ward right behind her.

She jumped, dropping one of the bottles. “Jesus, you startled me. What are you, part ninja?”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he backed her up against the counter.

A frisson of nervous energy shot through her veins like a lightning bolt. “Ward, what are you doing?” Suddenly his hands were on her waist, lifting her onto the counter, and she yelped in surprise.

“Grant, remember?”

His voice was quiet in the dark kitchen, and his hands on her waist felt like branding irons. She swallowed hard, drawing in a shaky breath and then regretting it when all she smelled was _him_. He was so far into her space that she could feel the warmth radiating off of him, feel his muscular arms against hers and his waist between her knees.

“You and I both have a problem, Skye.” His hands were moving now, drifting up her back and playing with her hair. “We’re attracted to each other and instead of using that to our advantage, we’re both pretending it doesn’t exist. I think we need to stop.”

Stop. Stop what again? She couldn’t even think about what he was saying because she was so distracted by his damn hands. She tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go with the cabinets behind her and the wall of Ward in front of her.

“You said…” she stopped when she realized her voice was shaking. Swallowing hard, she continued more firmly. “You said that you have to draw lines on missions. I’m trying to draw the lines.”

“I know what you’re doing,” he replied quietly. “But we’re leaving for California tomorrow and this isn’t working. No one would have bought us as an engaged couple tonight, and if strangers won’t buy it then neither will Miles.”

“What are you saying?” She’d tried keeping her hands to herself but was surprised to find them on his arms, stroking gently. “That this is an intimacy exercise?”

“Something like that.” His hands tightened on her as he pulled her closer to the edge, and his hands were on her hips now as he stepped in even closer. “We keep it out of the bedroom, but we have to be comfortable touching each other like this. Right now, I want to touch you.”

Yeah she was getting that, and God did it feel good. There was still a small part of her that wanted to protest; a part that wanted to snark and make a joke about horny Ward and blow off the whole thing. But the bigger part of her – the part that had wondered for days what it would be like to kiss Ward – that part was screaming for her just _do it already_.

So she did. The heat that exploded between them when their lips met caught her off guard, but she wanted more. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer and tightened her knees at his waist.

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, making out on the counter of his dark kitchen. His hands stayed above the waist, as did hers, but she traced every muscle of his arms and back she could reach. He pulled his mouth from hers and began kissing her neck, making her shiver and want way more than was on the table. Then he just held her, and they let their breathing slow and return to normal.

When Ward stepped back, he appeared unaffected at first. But something in his eyes told her it wasn’t at all one-sided. “We can use this attraction, Skye. We just can’t let it control us. Can you do that?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that if she got to kiss him like that every now and then, she could do a lot of things. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t appreciate jokes right now, so she settled for nodding and keeping her mouth shut. Sliding off the counter, she slipped past him and practically ran for the stairs.

Skye got ready for bed in record time and was feigning sleep by the time Ward came in. When he got into bed, she changed her mind and rolled over to face him. “Grant?”

“Yeah?”

She reached towards him hesitantly but changed her mind and pulled back. “Nothing. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Skye turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling, knowing that sleep would be a long time coming that night.

**A/N: I got busy today, so this chapter has had minimal editing. Let me know if you see anything wonky. Hope you enjoyed the update! Look for the next one in a few days :)**

**Up Next: Cali, baby, and Miles makes his first appearance.**


	6. Chapter 6

** Chapter 6 **

Skye could barely contain her excitement as Ward turned onto the quiet, residential street on which their new house was located. After days of telling herself to temper her expectations, she couldn’t wait to see if the house was as magical as she remembered. Then she saw it – the sandy stone exterior, the Spanish tile roof, the green shutters, and the red brick walkway – all just as she’d pictured in her memory.

They pulled into the driveway, and Ward parked in front of the double garage doors. “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if we’d make it.”

“Haha. It didn’t take us as long as you said it would when you were complaining about my side trips,” she said as she got out of the car.

“It took us two days longer than it should have, even allowing for normal stops,” Ward told her, walking around the front of the vehicle.

“But we got all those great photos! You can’t drive across the country and not stop to take pictures along the way,” she pointed out. “The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Roswell, and the Grand Canyon. Okay, so we had to change course a little to hit Roswell and then back up to drop by the Grand Canyon, but it was fun, and we made up some time by taking turns driving and napping last night rather than stopping at a hotel.”

It was now late Tuesday afternoon. They were meeting the realtor to pick up the keys so they could check out the house before the movers brought everything the following day, and Skye couldn’t wait to see it. When Ward slipped his arm around her waist, she leaned into him.

“You’re right. It was fun,” he admitted. “And we did get some good pictures.”

She turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “More visual proof for our relationship history book,” she said, grinning up at him.

He shook his head at her, but he couldn’t quite hide the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “True.” His eyes shifted to something behind her. “And we have company. It looks like one of the neighbors from across the street.”

“Show time, Mr. Ward,” she said teasingly, sliding her hand behind his neck and leaning up to kiss him. Their lips clung for just a moment, but it was long enough to send heat curling through her veins. The way they reacted physically to one another was nothing short of bizarre considering they’d been like oil and water from their first meeting. But ever since that night in his kitchen, they were more like oil and fire with their underlying attraction simmering below the surface, waiting to spark.

That night had changed things between them, and Ward had been right about one thing. During the days it took to get to California, being open to their mutual attraction altered their dynamic as a couple. Every time they’d stopped someone, asking them to take a photo for them, comments were made about what a lovely couple they were.

A throat clearing behind them interrupted Skye’s thoughts, and she stepped back from Ward. Turning, she saw a woman with shoulder length blonde hair standing behind her. Dressed in white linen pants, a pink, boat neck pullover top and sandals, she appeared to be around thirty and was holding one of the cutest babies Skye had ever seen.

The woman shifted the baby on her hip and smiled. “Sorry, I hated to interrupt you, but I have your keys.” She held up a set of house keys before passing them to Skye. “I’m Stacy Marbut. My husband Rob and I live across the street – the white one with the pool in the back.”

“Skye Coulson,” she replied, holding out her hand. “And this is my fiancé, Grant Ward. So you’re the realtor?”

“Oh, no. That’s actually my sister-in-law, but she had a family emergency and since I’m home all day, I offered to keep an eye out for you. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” Ward said. “Thanks for doing that.”

“I’ll just walk through with you and let you make sure everything is okay. They had the cleaners in yesterday, so the place should be spotless. If it’s not, I can call them back this afternoon,” Stacy said. “Oh and this is Olivia. She’s almost a year old now – in two weeks, actually.”

“Thanks,” Skye said, smiling at the baby and reaching a finger towards her. “Hi Olivia.”

Olivia grinned and her wispy blonde curls caught the light as she suddenly lunged for Skye.

“Olivia! Sorry,” Stacy apologized. “This one is a handful.”

The young housewife continued chattering as they entered the house. Directly beyond the entry hall was the living room, which was even larger than Skye had realized and took up a large part of the downstairs space. The bonus room was across the living room and to the left. It overlooked the backyard, and the large windows flooded the room with light. French doors opened off of the living room and led to a covered patio perfect for small parties or barbecues.

There was a small bathroom downstairs. The dining room was to the right and led directly into the kitchen, which had a modern feel with its red walls and sleek black appliances. Slate grey countertops matched those of the island, and the glass front cabinets and island were white. Skye remembered reading that the countertops were new and made from a manufactured quartz material that was both durable and easy to care for.

“The previous owners, the Millers, were in the process of remodeling when Ted got transferred,” Stacy explained as they walked. “The kitchen is completely up-to-date, with new countertops, and the bamboo flooring was put in about two years ago.”

Upstairs they walked through the master bedroom and bathroom, both larger than any of the places Skye had ever lived. The master bath had a garden tub and a separate shower, and she couldn’t wait to soak in the tub. The guest bedroom had an attached bathroom that could be accessed both from the bedroom and the hallway, and the other small room upstairs would work well as an office or an exercise room. Aside from the kitchen, the walls upstairs and downstairs were painted either white or neutral shades of taupe, and the same dark bamboo flooring was in every room except the bathrooms, which all had ceramic tile floors.

Walking downstairs again, Stacy led them through the kitchen to the laundry room, where a door led to the double garage.

She pointed to a door located to their right. “That door leads to a small basement. The water heater is down there, but nothing else. There’s also a room above the garage. The Millers were going to turn it into a guest room, but they never finished,” Stacy said as she bounced the baby on her hip. “So, do you have any questions?”

As promised, the cleaners had done an excellent job, and the house was move-in ready.

Ward shook his head, stepping closer to Skye and wrapping an arm around her. “Everything looks fine to me. Skye?”

“No, I’m good. I just wish we could stay here tonight,” she said a bit wistfully, suddenly hating the idea of going to another hotel for the night.

“Is this your first house?” Stacy asked.

Skye smiled. “Is it that obvious?”

“I remember how it was for me,” Stacy said with a laugh. “The first time you walk in, you never want to leave. I hope you have some time to get settled before you have to go to work. My sister-in-law mentioned you’ll be working at Quinn Worldwide, right? What is it that you do?”

“I start next week, so we have some time. I’m a computer programmer and analyst,” Skye replied. “And Grant just left the Army, so he’ll probably look for something in the private security sector.”

“Well you’re in the right town for private security,” Stacy told Ward.

“True. It will be nice to have a break for a little while, though. I haven’t taken much time off in the last ten years, so I’m going to use this opportunity to fix the house up,” Ward explained.

“In other words, he’ll be my househusband for a couple of months,” Skye said, her tone teasing as she smirked up at him. “Feel free to cook and clean – you’re better at it than I am anyway.”

When Skye looked back at their new neighbor, she was grinning at them. “I’m so happy to have another young couple here. About half of the married couples in the neighborhood are in their forties and fifties, a few are retirement age, and the rest of us are thirtysomethings. And I know you’ll be busy this week, so no pressure, but my husband and I are having a small scale barbecue on Saturday afternoon if you’d like to drop by. It’ll just be us, my sister-in-law and her husband, and a few couples from the neighborhood.”

“I’m sure we could drop by for a little while,” Skye said, shooting a questioning look at Ward, who nodded.

“Great!” Stacy pulled a small, folded paper from her pocket. “I wrote down my cell phone number for you. Give me a call or just walk over if you need something.”

With a wave, she left.

Skye sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Tired?” Ward asked, moving to stand in front of her.

“Yeah, a little. Not that we have time to be tired,” she said. “We should probably try to get the bedroom painted this afternoon. That way it can dry before tomorrow, and if we open the windows in the morning, the paint smell can air out before we have to sleep in there.”

“It was good thinking on your part, picking out the paint for the bedroom and living room and bringing it with us,” he told her. “If we get started now, I think we can finish the living room wall and the bedroom before we head to the hotel. Have you thought about the other rooms?”

She shook her head. “I don’t mind the dark taupe shade in the living room. The orange wall will add some color, and it’s a warm shade that will look good with the furniture. I like this room. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about all the red and black, but the white cabinets lighten it up a lot. That white dining room though…”

He sighed. “What color?”

“Maybe just one wall – red? Maybe Stacy knows what shade the Millers went with in the kitchen. It would tie the rooms together. And I definitely want to paint the bonus room. Speaking of which, what do you want to do with that room?”

Shrugging, he asked, “What did you have in mind?”

“Office?” she asked. “There’s that other room upstairs too, though. One could be an office and one could be a workout room. You said we need a home gym.”

“That might be better in the room above the garage,” he said. “For now, we can plan to make the downstairs room an office.”

“Yellow?” she suggested. “It’s cheerful - that room has the bay window that faces the garden, and it gets a lot of light. Want to go look at the garage room?”

They went out the kitchen door into the garage and took the stairs. Opening the door, they found one large room, roughly the size of a small studio apartment. The previous owners had installed a small bathroom, but when Ward turned on the water nothing happened.

“Looks like the plumbing wasn’t finished,” he said. “But it should be easy enough to hire someone to finish it.”

“This could be your mancave.”

“My what?” he asked, looking amused.

“Haven’t you ever heard of mancaves? The room for guys to do guy things – play video games or whatever.”

“I don’t play video games.”

“Well, it can be your dojo then. You can put down a few mats and put up a punching… thingy,” she said. “Add a treadmill and some free weights, and you have a home gym.”

“Punching thingy? You mean a punching bag?”

“Yes. That.” She walked over to the window and looked out. “It’s a nice neighborhood, isn’t it?”

Ward walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. It was something he did often now, and she automatically leaned back against him, folding her hands over his.

“You were good with Stacy,” he told her. “She bought us, no question.”

“I like her,” she replied. “But don’t worry that I’ll forget what you said about trusting people.”

“You can still make friends, Skye. Be yourself as much as possible. It will make things easier for you.”

“What about you?” she asked, turning to look at him.

“It’s not the same,” he admitted. “I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s probably easier than it should be to become someone else.”

“Just…” she paused, thinking about how best to express one of the concerns that had been in the back of her mind for a few days. “Just try not to put up the front with me, Grant. I want to know who _you_ are, not who you want other people to see.”

“I’ve probably been more honest with you in the last week than I have with most people in my life, past and present, if that helps. You’re easier to talk to than I expected,” he said, reaching up to push her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“Yeah?” She smiled up at him. Sometimes he said things that were so nice they bordered on sweet and romantic, two words she’d never actually associate with a reserved specialist like Grant Ward. “Careful. You can turn a girl’s head with compliments like that.”

He shook his head, but he was smiling, so she knew his exasperation was for show. “We should probably get started on those rooms if we want to finish tonight.”

While Ward brought in the rest of the paint supplies, Skye spread the plastic sheeting over the floor of the master bedroom and used tape to protect the edges of the cream window frames from any paint splatter. After deciding where all the furniture was going to go, she and Ward started painting the wall against which the bed would rest.

When they finished, they moved back to look at it.

“What do you think?” she asked, sitting down and leaning back on her hands.

Ward sat beside her. “I like it. It’s a nice color.”

“Nice enough that you’re okay with painting the other walls?” When he nodded, she stood up. “Well, let’s get on it. The store clerk said this paint dries fast, so we should be able to do the second coat after we finish the living room wall.”

They worked well together with Ward using the stepladder to reach the higher spots and Skye concentrating on the lower parts of the walls. Soon they moved onto the living room, deciding to paint the wall that would be behind the sofa. By the time they were finished with the second coats in both rooms, it was almost ten and Skye was exhausted.

They packed up the paint supplies and stored them in a corner of the garage. When Skye checked her phone, she saw that Stacy had responded to her message. “Stacy says she has two cans of the leftover red paint. She got it when the Millers moved, but she’s decided she won’t use it. We can get it from her in the morning and paint the dining room.”

“Okay. We should head to the hotel. You look like you’re about to fall over, and tomorrow will be a long day. The movers are coming at nine and we also have a security company coming to change the locks and install a security system.”

“Is the security company with S.H.I.E.L.D.?” she asked, looping her bag over her shoulder and following Ward out of the house.

“Well, technically they’re listed as a subsidiary of Stark’s company, but they’ve more or less taken over security jobs for a lot of S.H.I.E.L.D. ops,” he said, starting the car and backing out of the driveway. “They’ve been vetted at the highest level.”

Skye reclined her seat and yawned, closing her eyes. “I guess if you can’t get in at Quinn Worldwide, you could always go to work for Stark. I heard he’s poached a few people from the agency.”

If Ward answered she didn’t hear it; she was asleep before they turned onto the main road.

***

Ward accepted the key from the night manager at the hotel and walked over to the small sofa where Skye appeared to have fallen asleep again. He paused, hating to wake her when she looked so wiped out. Unlike him, she wasn’t used to snatching sleep in small increments the way they had the night before.

He reached out and pushed her hair off of her cheek, smiling a little when she made a soft sound of disgruntlement. “Skye, wake up.”

“Awake. ‘Mawake,” she mumbled, though her eyes remained closed.

“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked.

Her eyes popped open at that. “No.”

She stood and walked under own steam, though she did lean into him when he put his arm around her shoulders. He was amused when he realized her eyes were closed again. They took the elevator up to the third floor and when he unlocked the door, Skye went straight for the double bed.

“Do you want the first shower?” she asked, yawning again.

“I think you’d better take the first one,” he commented. “You’re just going to fall asleep again.”

“Okay,” she said, sighing deeply as she sat up.

She didn’t take long, emerging from the bathroom wearing her usual shorts and tank combo. As was her routine, she sat on the bed and started brushing her hair. He’d noticed it was something she always did no matter how tired she was, and she often braided it before going to sleep.

Ward wasn’t sure what it was about the activity that so fascinated him. Maybe it was the way the brush slid rhythmically through the long, shiny strands. She really did have beautiful hair, and he’d begun giving into the urge to touch it occasionally, enjoying the silky feel of it brushing against his fingers when he put his arm around her.

Making a decision, he sat behind her on the bed and reached for the brush. “Here, let me.”

She hesitated but then handed him the brush.

Ward brushed her hair slowly, using the fingers of his other hand to comb through the strands. When her hair fell in perfectly smooth waves, he separated it into three parts and fashioned the same type of loose braid she often wore to bed, using the hair tie she passed him to secure it.

“No one’s brushed my hair since I was a little girl,” Skye finally said quietly. “I forgot how nice it feels. Is that one of the intimacy exercises?”

It wasn’t, but he said, “Yeah.”

Getting up off the bed, he grabbed his bag and went into the bathroom. When he came out, Skye was curled on the side of the bed away from the door, already asleep. He stood at the end of the bed for a moment, watching her, wondering if he was allowing the lines to blur more than was wise.

There was something about Skye that always seemed to blur the lines with him. It had never happened on any of his previous missions, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it now. In some ways it was probably necessary simply because Skye was a civilian who couldn’t operate within clearly defined lines and parameters. In this case, he’d known it was up to him to adjust. Like a good soldier, he’d done that.

He still thought it was the best decision; it was still a tactical decision. Skye had relaxed and opened up more, and he’d found himself responding more genuinely to her as well. He hadn’t been lying when he told her that she was easier to talk to than he’d expected.

As long as he could compartmentalize it all at the end of the day, it would work. Ward pulled the covers back and lay on his side of the bed. _Put it in a box_ , he reminded himself. He evened his breathing and a short time later, he fell asleep.

***

The next morning, they arrived back at the house just in time to greet the movers. The boxes were all labeled according to room. Skye opened them as they were unloaded and checked items to make sure nothing was broken while Ward directed the movers to set up the furniture in the way they had discussed the night before.

The movers were just finishing up when the security company arrived. Skye was in the bedroom making up the bed when Ward walked into the room.

“Smell this! Doesn’t that smell amazing?”

Ward raised a brow when she held one of the bed pillows out to him, but he sniffed it. “Is that lavender?”

“Jemma bought me some herb sachets to pack with our towels and bed linens, and it was such a good idea,” she explained happily. “I’ve never even heard of doing that.”

“The security company is here, so I’m going to help them install the system,” Ward told her.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to finish the bedroom and bathroom and unpack our clothes. Then I’m going to the grocery store before I start on the kitchen. The list is downstairs on the island if you want to add anything to it.”

Skye put her earphones in and listened to music as she finished making the bed, admiring the completed effect. The teal walls brought out the subtle teal design on the brown duvet set, while the red pillow and red lampshades added the right pop of color and tied into the three paintings Ward had hung before the movers set up the bed. She had fallen in love with the graceful, cream colored birds against the red and black background s as soon as she’d seen them in the home store. The Asian design contributed a whimsical effect to the otherwise plain bedding set she’d chosen.

Next she unpacked the bathroom linens and hung the shower curtain. The bathroom was painted a soft cream color that matched the trim and crown moldings in the bedroom. Deciding she liked that, she’d bought a brown and teal shower curtain that coordinated with the bedding set, and their towels were also brown and teal.

After putting the towels and extra sheets away in the linen closet, she opened the garment bags and suitcases and began putting away their clothes. She assigned the right half of the closet to Ward and hung his dress shirts and suits towards the back while hanging his jeans and pullovers in the front. Ties, socks and boxers went into drawers, along with shorts and T-shirts.

She opened another garment bag, expecting to see a suit but finding an Army dress uniform with assorted medals. _They really go all out on these covers_ , she thought as she hung it in the very back of the closet.

Skye had realized while unpacking that Ward had more clothes than she did. She was probably going to have to do a little shopping for appropriate office attire this weekend. She liked clothes, but she wished she had Jemma there for a shopping trip.

Ward was still busy with the security company when she walked downstairs. In the kitchen, she eyed the boxes piled everywhere and groaned. All of the dishes would need to be washed before being put away, and washing dishes had to be her least favorite activity.

“What’s wrong?”

She turned to see Ward standing in the doorway. “Just imagining all the dishes that have to be washed today.”

“Ah,” he replied. “Why don’t you go to the store and we’ll do the dishes together later. It’s not like we have to cook tonight. We’re not that from Koreatown if you want to have dinner there later and walk around for an hour or so.”

“That is the best idea you’ve had all day,” she said, grabbing her bag and keys. “Call me if you think of anything to add while I’m at the store.”

Skye spent a couple of hours at Target, buying household supplies before moving on to the grocery section. There was a Starbucks located in the strip mall, and she decided to get a couple of coffees before heading back to the house. Ordering an iced latte for herself and Ward’s usual black coffee, she pulled out her phone and tapped a message to let him know she was headed back.

“Skye?”

She looked up to see Miles standing in front of her, looking surprised but happy. “Miles.”

Stepping forward, he hugged her tightly. “I didn’t know you were already in town.”

“Just since yesterday,” she said slowly, pulling away from him. She didn’t feel prepared for this first meeting, but maybe it was better to get it out of the way before she started work.

“Have you found an apartment yet? I live in a nice complex if you haven’t. You could come by and check it out.”

Taking a breath, she decided to just come out with it. “I bought a house, actually – a two bedroom split level in La Brea.”

Miles raised his brows, clearly surprised. “You bought a house? That seems like a lot of work for one person.”

_And here we go_. “Two people. I didn’t come alone.”

He stared at her. “What?”

Holding up her left hand, she explained, “I’m engaged, Miles. I thought about telling you when we talked before, but it wasn’t really a conversation I wanted to have over the phone.”

His eyes on her ring, he asked, “Who is he?”

“His name is Grant. After I left Austin I headed east, and my van broken down in North Carolina. That’s where I met him – he was stationed at Ft. Bragg.”

Miles laughed, but it was a harsh sound rather than one of real amusement. “You – you’re marrying a soldier? Is this a joke?”

Rubbing her hand across her forehead, she said, “Former. He left the Army for me.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he shook his head. “I should have known there was something going on when you wanted a nine to five job. I just thought maybe…” he broke off, staring down at the floor.

He’d thought it was because of him. Skye felt ten kinds of shitty in that moment because the last thing she’d ever wanted to do was hurt Miles. But it had been so long, and she’d changed so much since she saw him last that it never occurred to her he would be this upset.

“I’m sorry.” Lame, but she didn’t know what else to say.

He shrugged and looked at her. “Grant, huh? Sounds like a toolbag.”

Skye smiled at that. “I won’t lie – he can be sometimes. I didn’t like him much the first time I met him, but he’s not the person I thought he was.”

“And you’re happy?”

Nodding, she said, “Yeah, I am.”

The barista called her name, and she was grateful for the reprieve. “Sorry. We’re getting settled into the house today, so…”

“Yeah. I’ll see you next week.” He turned and walked out of the coffee shop without looking back.

Skye arrived back at the house to find Ward talking to the security guys outside. When she got out of the car, Ward called out, “I’ll bring in the groceries in just a minute.”

“Okay,” she answered automatically.

She took the coffees in and set them on the island, suddenly feeling depressed. Had she made a mistake agreeing to this assignment? Why had she never realized how hurt Miles could be by this? She’d assumed he’d be surprised, but the look in his eyes when he saw her engagement ring had been so much worse than that.

Ward came in carrying a few bags that he set down beside the island. “You bought a lot.”

“Yeah, well, we needed a lot. It’s a house,” she replied shortly. She bent down to grab one of the bags, but Ward stopped her.

Turning her to face him, his eyes scanned her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, not wanting to talk about it yet. She tried to walk around him, but he suddenly lifted her onto the island, effectively trapping her. “Okay, this was cute a week ago, but now you’re pissing me off. Just go unload the car.”

“Skye, obviously something is wrong. What happened while you were gone?”

When she realized he was scanning her from head to toe as if checking for injuries, she rolled her eyes. “God, I’m fine. I ran into Miles, that’s all.”

His eyes searched hers, and she looked away.

“I see,” he finally said. “I guess it didn’t go well.”

“No, it didn’t. The ring in particular went over like a lead balloon.” She covered her face with her hands for a moment before scraping her hair back over her shoulders. “I feel like the shittiest person on the planet right now. I just didn’t realize, that’s all.”

“You didn’t realize he’s still in love with you. That doesn’t make you a shitty person, Skye. It makes you human.”

Twisting her hands in her lap, she looked down at the ring that had so upset Miles. “He and I never talked about love. We talked around it, so it was easy for me to tell myself that he wasn’t that invested.”

“What about your investment?”

She looked up to see his eyes trained steadily on her face, reading her reactions in that way she knew he did with everyone around him. “I don’t love him, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think I ever did – not the way he wanted me to.”

“You’re sure? If you still have feelings for him, it could affect the entire mission.”

“I don’t think it would have been so easy for me to leave and stay gone if I had,” she said honestly, meeting his eyes again. “And this thing with us, this… attraction. I don’t think I’d feel that way if I still had feelings for him.”

Ward sighed but pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. Skye leaned into the hug, wondering if it had been that obvious how much she needed one. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. For someone not comfortable with snuggies, he actually gave really good hugs. They were just as strong and steady as he was.

“There’s a big difference between love and attraction,” he told her, his fingers running through her hair.

Pulling back, she murmured, “I know. But trust me – I’m not confused about my feelings for Miles.” She rested her hand against his cheek and kissed him.

His hand tightened in her hair and then he cupped the back of her head and deepened the kiss.

When they pulled apart, Skye took a deep breath and attempted to lighten the mood. “Kitchens are becoming our thing.”

“Kitchens can be sexy,” Ward deadpanned.

“Did you just make a joke?” He smiled and she laughed. “You did! And here I thought you didn’t know how to make jokes, especially about this.”

“Let’s get the groceries put away and take the evening off,” he suggested. “And Skye?”

Hopping down off the island, she looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t shut me out. I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.”

Skye nodded. He walked out into the garage and she pushed a few boxes out of the way to make room for the grocery bags as she thought about what she’d told Ward. It was true that she wasn’t confused about her feelings for Miles. Ward, on the other hand, was a different story. If there was one thing that would be worse than still having feelings for Miles, it would be allowing herself to feel too much for the man she with whom she was living. It was becoming all too easy to forget that.

**A/N – Sorry guys! I meant to have this up on Thursday but the week got away from me. But at least you get a nice long chapter! Next week will also be busy because I have to finish writing four different final exams for my students, but just know that I’m so into this story right now that I’m taking every opportunity to write and edit. Also, I’m editing alone so if you see any glaring errors, please point them out to me since it’s sometimes hard to see my own mistakes. I really appreciate the love this story is getting! You guys are great :)**

**Up Next – Ward and Skye finish settling into the house, meet the neighbors, and Skye starts her job at Quinn Worldwide. Also (probably) Ward and Miles meet (either at the end of the next chapter or the beginning of the following one. We’ll see where I have to cut for length.) I hope you enjoyed the update! Look for the next one in a few days!**


	7. Chapter 7

** Chapter 7 **

Skye woke up on Friday morning and stretched, wiggling happily against the soft sheets of her bed. Technically, she supposed it was hers and Ward’s, but she’d chosen the duvet and linens – four hundred thread count, Egyptian cotton sheets she’d been lucky enough to find on clearance. That had to make it seventy-five percent hers, at least.

As usual Ward was already up. She had a vague recollection of him getting out of bed at six but telling her to go back to sleep when she stirred. Not that she’d had any intention of getting up that early, anyway. What did he even do at that hour?

She threw back the covers and got up. Walking over to the window, she looked out at the bright, California sunshine. She’d missed California, especially during the first miserable D.C. winter she’d endured.

After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she changed into black yoga pants, a blue T-shirt and flip flops. In the kitchen, she found that Ward had already made the coffee but was nowhere to be found. Skye poured a cup and added some of the French vanilla cream she’d bought on Wednesday.

A flash of movement from the kitchen window caught her attention, and she saw Ward outside in the driveway talking to a tall, blonde woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. Judging by his running attire and the paper in his hand, he’d been stopped on his way back into the house. The blonde woman was also standing far closer to him than was appropriate given they’d just met.

Skye went through the garage since the doors were open and walked up the driveway to meet them.

Ward turned when he heard her coming. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” she replied, moving to stand beside him as he slid an arm around her waist. “Good run?”

He nodded and kissed the top of her head quickly. “This is another one of our neighbors. Ava, this is my fiancée, Skye Coulson. Skye, Ava Brookes. She and her husband live down the street.”

Ava didn’t look entirely pleased with Skye’s interruption but masked it quickly. “I saw Grant coming back from his run while I was taking my morning walk and wanted to introduce myself.”

_I’ll bet you did_ , Skye thought, amused. She wouldn’t be surprised if the other woman’s morning walk had been prompted by seeing Ward running the day before. She was wearing makeup, her hair was perfectly combed into a high, perky ponytail, and was she wearing a pushup bra? _Morning walk, my ass._

“That was nice of you,” Skye said, raising her coffee cup and taking a sip to hide her smile.

“Will you two be at the Marbuts’ barbecue tomorrow?” Ava asked, her eyes still on Ward.

“We’ll drop by for a little while,” Skye answered. “So, I guess we’ll see you then.”

Ava took the hint and gave a little wave in Grant’s direction before heading back up the street towards her house.

Ward and Skye walked back into the house, and Skye started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Ward asked, setting the paper on the island and grabbing a coffee cup from the cabinet.

“You do realize she was lying in wait to ambush you on your morning run, right? I would bet my laptop she doesn’t actually walk every morning.”

Ward shot her a look. “Give me some credit, Skye. She wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“I have a feeling living here is going to be like stepping into an episode of _Desperate Housewives_ ,” she commented, laughing again. At Ward’s curious expression, she added, “TV show.”

“Let me guess – about desperate housewives?” He sipped his coffee. “I read their file. Her husband Ethan is a podiatrist at a small, family practice.”

“Her husband is also a forty year old man who spends a lot of time online in very specific chat rooms or looking for shirtless pictures of celebrities. Male celebrities,” she said pointedly. “And he is weirdly into Zac Efron – not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” he asked.

“From my security check. I figured you only wanted to know if I found something that posed an actual security threat. Her husband potentially being in the closet explains why she was drooling over you, but it’s not exactly a threat.”

Then again, Skye had a feeling even the happily married women might do a little drooling over Ward. His six feet and three inches of solid muscle filled out his T-shirt and running shorts far better than the average guy, and she had certainly enjoyed the view on more than one occasion. Whether he was aware of it or not, he oozed alpha male sex appeal. She seriously doubted the suburban hubbies would be able to compete.

“I can handle Ava,” he said, apparently unconcerned. “Is there anything else you left out about the neighbors?”

She shrugged. “Stacy and Rob across the street are totally the average suburban family. No red flags for affairs or things like that. Two houses down are the Bradfords – Melanie and Christopher, two kids. I’m pretty sure Christopher was having an affair with Mrs. Miller of this house, and Melanie has been chatting online with some guy from work.”

“Not exactly happy families,” he commented, shaking his head. “Welcome to the suburbs.”

“It’s kind of sad. They must have thought they’d be happy at one point. It makes you wonder what happened, what changed.” Skye took a sip of her coffee. “My first boyfriend cheated on me. It definitely sucks.”

“Your first boyfriend was an idiot,” Ward told her, reaching out and tugging her braid.

She smiled at that. “You’re not wrong. So, honey, what’s on the agenda for today?”

“Breakfast,” he answered. “Then I thought I’d head upstairs and start setting up the home gym. This afternoon I’ll probably wash the car.”

They’d gotten a lot done the day before. They’d painted the downstairs office and the dining room, and they’d gone downtown to buy a secondhand desk, chair and bookshelves for the office. After that they’d gone to a fitness store, where Ward had picked out an elliptical machine, a weight bench, a few free weights, and a punching bag. They’d finished setting up the office, and the kitchen was organized. All that remained was setting up the home gym and small decorating details.

Skye pointed to the photos scattered across the dining room table. “I’m going to frame some photos and put others in an album. I figured I’d hang a few.”

“That’s a good idea,” he said, walking over to the table and glancing through the photos. “I know I complained at the time, but I’m glad we made those stops.”

“Me too.”

“But just so you know,” he continued, holding up a photo. “I am never, ever going back to Roswell with you, and I’m never wearing alien antenna again.”

Laughing, she grabbed the picture. “Come on, I love this picture.”

Ward had been dead set against wearing the alien antenna headband, but Skye had worn him down for a photo of them posed in front of the UFO shaped McDonald’s. His expression in the photo was resigned, so she was fairly certain he only agreed to shut her up.

Looking back, it had been surprisingly easy to get her way on the drive to California. Ward had complained but he’d never actually said no to any of her requests. As far as she was concerned, the photo was proof that Ward wasn’t as closed off as he appeared to be.

After breakfast, Ward went upstairs to set up the home gym, and Skye sat down at the dining room table to go through the photos. The day before Skye had stopped by a couple of stores that sold various frames, and she’d also had a multitude of their photos printed, some in color and some in black and white. She’d chosen a few dark wood frames for the living room, and some black frames with white matting for the kitchen and dining room.

One in particular had caught her eye – the words ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ cut out in black letters with a line underneath. A single 4x6 frame hung from each word – the middle frame hung horizontally while the end frames hung vertically on each end, creating a nice balance. Skye unhooked the frames and considered the photos to add.

She decided to put a color print of their engagement photo from the restaurant in the middle frame and used two black and white prints for the end frames. One print was of the sunset at the Grand Canyon; Skye had asked another tourist to take their photo, and she was leaning back against Ward, who had his arms wrapped comfortably around her waist. The second print was of them on a log bridge in the Smoky Mountains, the white water of a swollen creek rushing beneath them. A teenage girl there with her family had taken the photo, and Ward surprised Skye by scooping her up and holding her over the water as if he would let go. She was laughing in the photo as she grabbed at his jacket, and he was smiling at her.

Skye walked between the kitchen and dining room, taking note of the wall space. She finally decided to hang the Live, Laugh, Love frames on the red wall in the dining room. She’d had two landscape prints blown up in black and white with the intention of hanging them on that wall. Since one was of the Grand Canyon and the other was taken in the Smoky Mountains, they would pair well with the smaller photos and balance out the wall.

Working steadily over the next few hours, she chose photos from their cross-country drive for all the frames she’d purchased. Then she began filling an album with the remaining photos, including the green screen shots she and Ward had taken in his apartment. Since they were supposed to be documentation of the early stages of their relationship, Skye put them in first.

While taking those photos had been fun, she didn’t have the same sentimental attachment to them as she did to the others. As she went through the photos, adding them in chronological order, she smiled as she recalled events from their road trip. The album had lines underneath each photo for captions or dates. She and Ward had decided on dates for all the green screen shots, so she began filling in brief notes beneath each one.

She had just started adding dates from their road trip when a knock on the door interrupted her. Skye opened the front door to see Stacy and Olivia.

“Hi,” her new neighbor said. “I hope we’re not interrupting you.”

“No, come in,” Skye replied, stepping back to allow Stacy to push Olivia’s stroller into the house. When she saw the baby was sleeping, she lowered her voice. “She’s out, huh?”

“Same time every day,” Stacy confirmed. “This jogging stroller is a God send. I take her around the neighborhood or a couple of blocks down to that new park every day around mid-morning. She gets some fresh air and stimulation and then sleeps for at least two hours. So, I was hoping I could convince you to have lunch with me. I stashed a few delivery menus in my bag.”

“I could eat,” Skye said, glancing at her watch. “I didn’t even realize it was past twelve. Grant is still upstairs setting up his mancave - slash- home gym, and I’ve been busy sorting through photos to hang.”

Skye led Stacy through to the dining room, waving a hand at the frames and the album she’d spent the morning working on. “I’m still writing dates and captions into the album, but I’m done with the framing, so Grant can hang a few this afternoon.”

“Oh, I love this one!” Stacy exclaimed, reaching for the Live, Laugh, Love frame. “Great photo choices, too. I especially love the color photo of you two and this one on the log bridge.”

Pointing to the engagement photo, Skye said, “That was taken the night Grant gave me the ring. We’d already talked about getting married, but it wasn’t official until a few weeks ago when we were in D.C. taking care of his discharge paperwork.”

The details came much more easily than she could have imagined when she’d agreed to this assignment. She wondered if that should bother her more.

“So, how did he do it? Down on one knee in a restaurant?”

“Italian restaurant,” she confirmed. “It wasn’t quite that romantic, though.” Lowering her voice, she said gruffly, “We’re engaged. Obviously you need a ring.”

Stacy snorted with laughter. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. The man speaks six languages and sadly, he has game in none,” Skye told the other woman with a smile. “I will say he did good with the ring.”

Inspecting the diamond on Skye’s left hand, Stacy nodded in agreement. “Yes, he did. And wow, he speaks six languages? Was he an interpreter in the military?”

“Special Forces,” Skye said. “He was a pretty dedicated soldier when I met him.”

“So how did you two meet?”

“I’ve always been kind of a nomad,” Skye said. “I’m an orphan, so I don’t have any family. I met Grant when my van broke down near Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. I used to fix computers when I was strapped for cash. I needed money to fix the van, so I put up flyers and he was one of my clients.”

“Love at first sight?”

Laughing, she shook her head. “Hardly. He’s a little intense sometimes, you know? He couldn’t quite turn off soldier mode, and I couldn’t seem to stop poking at his armor to find the cracks. We had nothing in common, really, but there was something there.”

There was a surprising amount of truth in that, she suddenly realized, and recalled what Ward had said about half-truths. She wasn’t even sure when she’d settled on those particular truths.

“Anyway,” Skye continued, falling into the flow of the cover they had hashed out, “I had no intention of staying in Fayettville, but I ended up sticking around even after the van was fixed. One month turned into two, then five. When Grant was deployed for a few months, it finally hit me that things were way more serious than I thought they were. We couldn’t talk while he was gone, and I had no idea where he was or what he was doing. It must have been hard on him too because after he got back, he said he wanted to get out of the Army and marry me. I used to live in L.A. and I have a contact at Quinn Worldwide who got me the interview. So, here we are.”

“That’s so sweet – the whole ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ scenario,” Stacy said with a smile. “Rob and I grew up together. Later, we were high school sweethearts. We had a similar situation when he went off to college, and I still had a year of school left. It worked for a few months but then we broke up, and we didn’t find our way back to each other for a few years.”

Skye felt a little guilty that she already knew the details of Stacy and Rob’s lives. She made a mental note not to mess up by commenting on something she shouldn’t know. _Spy problems_ , she thought, feeling a twinge of humor.

“But obviously you worked it out,” Skye said, nodding at the baby sleeping peacefully in her stroller. “That is one very cute kid you’ve got.”

Stacy smiled proudly. “Thanks. What about you and Grant? Any family plans?”

“We’ve talked about it in a general sense,” Skye replied. She and Ward had decided to remain vague on those details. “But we haven’t even set a wedding date yet, so there’s definitely no rush.”

They continued chatting as they flipped through the menus and finally settled on ordering from a soup, salad and sandwich café. Skye walked up to the garage room with the menu and found Ward hanging his punching bag. “Almost done?”

“Yeah – last part here,” he answered, arms stretched above his head as he settled the bag onto the hook hanging from the ceiling. “Are you hungry?”

Holding up the menu, she said, “I was just coming to see what you want. Stacy dropped by for lunch.”

“That’s good,” he said, taking the menu from her and glancing through it. “She seems nice.”

“She is.” Skye looked around the room. “It looks good up here, but don’t you need a couch or chair or something?”

“For a gym?”

“Slash mancave,” she reminded him. “We’re both used to living alone. Don’t you think having our own space is probably a good idea?”

“Probably,” he allowed. “As soon as I get tired of you, I’ll buy a chair for my mancave.”

She couldn’t help grinning at that. Ward was funnier than she’d ever thought he would be. His sense of humor might be dry, but he had one. Ward chose a roast beef and provolone sandwich on rye bread with a green salad, and Skye headed back to the house to place their order.

Their food had just arrived when Ward came in through the kitchen. Skye looked up from plating the food. “You’re just in time.”

“Good.” He took a bottle of water from the fridge and nodded at Stacy, who was helping Skye at the island. “Nice to see you again.”

“You too,” she answered with a smile.

“Grant, can you clear off the table?” Skye asked, picking up one of the plates.

“Sure.” He paused to squeeze her shoulder and kiss the top of her head as he passed.

Skye felt that familiar rush of warmth through her body. She knew that certain habits – like Ward putting his arms around her, touching her, the casual kisses to her temple and the top of her head – were all part of the intimacy exercises. She’d pestered him with questions on the drive to California, and he’d finally told her about the ones he’d done with Natasha Romanov. She’d heard so many stories about the deadly Black Widow that it was hard for her to imagine Ward playing house with her.

Then again she’d never have imagined herself playing house with Ward either. She also couldn’t deny that she felt something every time he touched her, and she knew now that he felt it too. She just wasn’t sure if the knowing made the situation easier or more difficult. While it was flattering that she wasn’t alone in her attraction, it was also confusing trying to figure out where the lines were. And even if she could figure that out, how did she keep it uncomplicated?

She’d never considered how agents maintained deep covers, but she could see why the exercises were helpful. Being comfortable enough with someone to allow them to constantly invade your personal space bubble took time and energy. Skye wasn’t nearly as controlled as Ward, so if it was difficult for her, she could only imagine how difficult it was for a specialist used to being alone. She also couldn’t help wondering if he and Romanov had felt a similar attraction for each other. Ward seemed businesslike when he spoke of her, but he seemed businesslike about a lot of things.

When she walked over to the table, she saw Ward holding the Live, Laugh, Love frame. “Is this the one you wanted to hang in here?”

Nodding, she set the plate she was holding on a corner of the table. “I thought it would look nice against the red wall, and I want to hang those two black and white landscapes on either side. What do you think?”

“I like it,” he said, smiling at her.

He moved the album and all of the photos to one of the end tables by the sofa and carefully placed the frames on the floor beside it while Skye wiped the table down. Stacy helped her bring the plates and cutlery to the table.

Ward glanced over at the sleeping baby. “Are we making too much noise?”

“No, she’s fine. She’ll sleep through anything this time of day,” Stacy said, reaching out and tucking the blanket a bit more firmly around the baby. “She’s like Rob that way, thank God. My nephew is the total opposite, so I got lucky.”

They sat down to eat, and Skye wasted no time digging into her sandwich. “Okay, this is amazing. Here, try it.” She held out half of the sub sandwich, and Ward took a bite. “Corned beef and pastrami with melted cheese, mustard, mayo and some kind of Italian dressing. Do you like it?”

“It’s good,” he said. He held out his roast beef sandwich, used to their routine of sharing food now. Skye took a bite of the sandwich and stole a couple of cherry tomatoes from his salad.

When Skye noticed Stacy hiding a smile behind her napkin, she said, “Sorry. We’re not being too coupley, are we?”

“No,” the other woman assured her. “It’s cute.”

“The truth is, I don’t think I’ve had an entire meal to myself since we’ve been together,” Ward commented. “It started on our first date.”

“Sharing is caring,” she told him, snagging one of his olives.

After lunch, Ward helped them clean up and said, “I’m going to wash the car. Do you want me to hang those photos after I’m done?”

“Yeah, I’ll figure out where I want them all,” Skye replied, waving him away as she put the dishes in the sink. “I’ve got this.”

“Okay.” He tugged her braid and kissed her quickly before walking out into the garage.

“He likes to stay busy,” Stacy commented. “I have to nag Rob to get things done around the house on weekends.”

“It’s his training, I think. He’s not used to a lot of downtime,” Skye said. “He’s out of bed by six every day, no matter what.”

“Hmm, yes. I noticed him jogging around the neighborhood. I’m a happily married woman, but yeah, the view wasn’t bad,” Stacy said with a laugh.

“You weren’t the only one who noticed.”

“Let me guess – Ava?” Stacy grabbed a towel and helped dry the dishes. “She’s something else, isn’t she? You’ll get used to her though.”

After they finished cleaning up, Stacy reminded Skye about the barbecue the following afternoon and then went home. Skye walked outside to see Ward drying the car. She bit her lip as she remembered something she’d bought; grinning, she went back in to get it.

***

Ward was drying the car when he heard the door leading into the garage open and then close very quietly. He had pulled the SUV outside the garage to wash it, but years of training had taught him to be hyper aware of his surroundings. He didn’t pause in his movements or turn around as he wondered what Skye was up to.

When he heard her near silent footsteps approaching, he realized she was trying to sneak up on him. His lips twitched. He heard her quiet breaths, and then she stopped a couple of feet away.

Without turning to look at her, he said, “If you’re planning to sneak up on me, you’ll have to do better than…”

Cold water hit him square in the back of the head in short, quick bursts. Raising his hand to his hair, he turned to see Skye holding a water gun.

“Got you!” She laughed, and then shrieked when he lunged for her.

She managed to get to the other side of the SUV and fired at him again, hitting him in the chest and stomach. The water was so cold that he knew she must have added ice to it.

Ward held up his hands, walking slowly around the front of the car. “I surrender.”

Skye eyed him warily. “Uh-huh. Really?”

Nodding, he suddenly grabbed for her and managed to get the water gun. Laughing, she ran across the yard, and he gave chase as he fired cold water at her.

“Okay, stop, stop!” Doubled over with laughter, she held her stomach. “Damn, that’s cold.”

“I noticed,” he said. He tried not to notice how the front of her t-shirt now clung to her in a very enticing way. “Where did you get a water gun?”

“I bought it when we were in town yesterday,” she told him. “I got two, actually. That was fun, right?”

It was fun. He just didn’t want to admit it. “I heard you coming, you know.”

“I figured you would, but you didn’t guess I was going to shoot you with water, so I still win.” Skye held out her hand. “Can I have my gun back?”

He tucked it into the waist band of his shorts. “Sure – if you help me wax the car.”

“Seriously?” she grimaced and sighed. “Fine. But it’s Friday, and that means date night. You’re taking me dancing later.”

Now it was his turn to grimace. “Seriously?”

“It’ll be fun and painless,” she assured him, grabbing a towel from his box of supplies.

Somehow he doubted that.

***

Ward stood at the bar, waiting for their order and scoping out the clientele of JJ’s, a popular downtown club. He also made a mental note of all the exits in each room they’d walked through upon arriving. The club was large; the downstairs rooms included one for a live band as well as one where people could dance to pop music. When they’d walked upstairs, they found a large martini lounge with sofas and chairs scattered around in groupings perfect for larger parties.

Skye had settled on the room with the live band, and they managed to get one of the last available tables. When the bartender brought their drinks, he carried them back to the table.

He handed Skye her margarita. “So is tonight margarita night?” She’d ordered the same at the Mexican restaurant where they’d eaten dinner earlier.

“Tequila night,” she corrected him, taking a sip. “It makes me want to dance.”

She had removed her leather jacket, and his eyes were drawn to the way her necklace hung low against the swell of her breasts. The dark blue, soft knit material of her blouse outlined her curves perfectly, and the cap sleeves left her arms bare. Ward had already acknowledged his attraction to her, but the more time they spent together, the stronger it seemed to get.

He took a sip of his beer and said, “You missed a button. On your blouse.”

He’d noticed the top button undone after she left the restroom at the restaurant, and it had been mocking him ever since.

“Did I? My bad.” She glanced down but made no move to do anything about it. Instead, she leaned forward against her arms, which pushed her cleavage up. “Does it bother you?”

She was flirting with him. Wondering if it was the tequila talking, he slowly shook his head. “No.”

Skye gave him a knowing look before turning her attention to the band. She looked beautiful that night. Her hair was loose and hung in full waves across her shoulders and down her back. She had done something to her eyes, making them darker, and her lips were full and glossy.

Ward could compartmentalize. He’d been doing it since he was a teenager, and his training with S.H.I.E.L.D. had made him a master. So he could admit that he wanted Skye; he’d probably wanted her the day he’d taken her into the interrogation room. It would certainly explain how he’d reacted to her.

He wanted her. In other circumstances, circumstances not involving a mission where her life depended on his ability to remain focused and objective, he’d certainly have taken her to bed and gotten it out of his system by now.

He could be honest with himself about all of that as long as he could put it back into the box labeled ‘Skye’ at the end of the day. It wasn’t the end of the day yet, though.

Couples on the nearby dance floor were swaying to a slower song. Ward stood up and held out his hand to Skye.

When she looked surprised, he said, “You said you wanted to dance.”

He led her a few feet away to the edge of the dance floor and pulled her against his body. She relaxed against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was wearing heels, which evened out their height difference a little.

Holding one of her hands in his, he wrapped his arm around her waist, enjoying the feel of her body and the fluid way she moved.

Looking surprised, she said, “I didn’t think you could dance.”

“I never said that,” he pointed out. “It’s just not my favorite activity.”

Skye shifted closer, looking up at him and smiling. She didn’t say anything though. After a couple of minutes she released his hand to wrap both arms around him and place her head against his shoulder.

They danced off and on for the next couple of hours. It was a new sort of intimacy exercise, one which was tempting Ward to forget things he couldn’t afford to forget. By the time they left, Skye was a little drunk but surprisingly quiet. He glanced over at her a couple of times during the drive home, wondering what she was thinking about.

When they got home, Ward unlocked the door and then reset the security system. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it over the chair. Turning to Skye, he was surprised when she took his hand and led him over to the sofa. She pushed against his chest, indicating she wanted him to sit down. So he sat, and she followed, carefully straddling his lap.

“What are you doing?” he asked, meeting her dark eyes in the dim light.

“What we both want,” she answered quietly.

She leaned forward and her lips brushed against his, slowly and as soft as butterfly wings. The full curves of her breasts pressed against his chest and the weight of her felt very, very good. His hand crept up her back, and he tangled his fingers in her silky curls, pulling her even closer. When her lips parted, he swept his tongue inside, tasting her.

Skye ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and her thumbs brushed his neck. She hit a sensitive spot behind his ear, and he jerked back.

“What’s wrong?” she murmured, her thumbs brushing the spot again.

Ward flinched. “Nothing.”

Comprehension dawned on her face, followed by delight. “You’re ticklish!”

When she tried to brush her thumb across the same spot, he flipped her off his lap and shifted her beneath him on the sofa. “I’m not ticklish.”

“You are,” she argued with a laugh. “Super spy is ticklish. That’s adorable.”

When she reached for him again, he clasped her hands and moved them up beside her head. In this position, he could feel every curve and line of her body, especially when she parted her legs and allowed him to settle into the cradle of her hips.

“Skye…”

“Shhh,” she whispered. “Not yet, okay?”

Ward knew he should stop; instead, he kissed her. When he released her hands, she wrapped her arms around him, and her palms slid along his back beneath his t-shirt. He was reacting physically, and he knew she must be able to feel him against her. Pulling his lips away from hers, he rested his forehead against hers and inhaled deeply.

“We should stop. Right?”

She didn’t sound so certain, but he told himself it was probably the alcohol talking. He sat up slowly and moved off of her, watching as she also sat up and straightened her blouse.

“Well, that was different,” she said, pushing her hair away from her face. “Bad tequila.”

He had a sudden urge to laugh. “Blaming it on the tequila is a cliché, isn’t it?”

“Everything can be blamed on tequila,” Skye said firmly. “That’s why it’s a cliché.”

She stood up and added, “But don’t think I won’t remember that you’re ticklish.”

_Damn_. “I’m not ticklish.”

“Oh yes. Yes, you are,” she said, smiling. “Night.”

Ward sat on the sofa after she went upstairs, thinking about what had just happened. He wanted her, and she obviously wanted him. Attraction was, in some ways, very simple. It was chemistry and biology and sex was a basic human imperative.

But there was nothing simple about Skye or his attraction to her. They were barely two weeks into their assignment with a long way to go. The potential for complications was growing by the day.

_Put it in a box. Compartmentalize it at the end of the day._

He cleared his mind and controlled his breathing as he pictured the box in his mind. Skye’s box.

_Put it in a box_.

Fifteen minutes later, mind clear, he went upstairs to find Skye already asleep on her side of the bed. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth before undressing and tossing his clothes in the hamper.

Wearing only his boxers, he slid into bed next to her and relaxed against the soft sheets. She hadn’t braided her hair, and he could feel it brushing against his arm. He could also smell the soft scent of her body lotion.

Ward closed his eyes and focused on relaxing each muscle group.

_Put it in a box._

 

**A/N – Sorry this is late guys! This was a hell of a week because we’re coming up on the end of the university quarter. I’ve been writing final exams and grading papers, etc. Hopefully next week will be a bit better. I had to cut before Skye started at Quinn Worldwide because when I was rewriting scenes and editing, I kept adding bits and pieces. This chapter is about 5,600 words as a result, so this was the best place to cut it.**

**Up next – Meeting more neighbors, cooking and game night, Quinn Worldwide, and Ward and Miles finally meet. I’ll get it up as soon as I can. Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

** Chapter 8 **

When Ward woke up, the first thing he noticed was the warm body pressed against his chest and hips. The second thing he noticed was his own physical response to said warm body, and he suppressed a groan.

He’d awakened against Skye like this once before on their trip west, and he’d made it a point to stick as close to his side of the bed as possible after that. And he couldn’t blame Skye this time either since it appeared that he was the one who’d drifted during the night. Her hair was in his face, so he took a moment to brush it away as he pulled his arm from where it lay around her waist. Then he turned carefully onto his back and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

Ward had never had this kind of problem on a mission. Sure, he’d felt a surface attraction to other agents before, had even acted on it a time or two, and he’d seduced a few high value targets on his deep cover operations. However, those situations had been completely different from the one he now found himself in.

For one thing, he’d always been able to compartmentalize his feelings and avoid emotional attachments. He used the box system for a reason; it was a filing cabinet of sorts for any potential distractions, and the system had served him well over the years. Despite Skye’s previous assertions that he was more robot than man, he knew he wasn’t.

His boxes were proof of his humanity and, ultimately, his weakness. His desires and stressors, his feelings of guilt, anger and loneliness, his self-doubts and self-recriminations were all appropriately tagged at the end of each day and filed away because as a specialist, he didn’t have the luxury of wallowing. Spending too much time reflecting on things not related to his objectives could get him killed. Worse, it could get someone else killed – Skye, for instance.

He honestly wasn’t sure if allowing their attraction to follow its natural course would make things better or worse at this point. If he thought he could keep it compartmentalized, keep it filed away and lock down his feelings, he’d be open to exploring it. He hadn’t felt this level of attraction to anyone in years. Hell, if he was going to be completely honest with himself, maybe he never had.

The issue was that Skye refused to stay in the damn box. She popped out at the most unexpected moments – when she insisted on sharing food, or when she got excited about the house. Every time she took an almost childlike delight in things like the kitschy tourist traps in Roswell or an impromptu water gun fight, she pushed her way out of the box and a little further into his life.

He could relax his own rigid rules. Ward could forget the box where Skye was concerned, but a part of him still felt that would be a mistake for a number of reasons. Besides his objectivity being compromised, he also had to consider that this assignment, and thus their burgeoning friendship, had an expiration date. Once it was over, he’d be on to the next mission, Skye would return to the headquarters in D.C., and it wasn’t likely they’d often see each other after that.

Risking emotional attachment to Skye, however tempting it might be, was a mistake he couldn’t afford. It had only been two weeks. What would happen after two months? Six? What if she got attached as well? The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

Slipping out of the bed, he wasn’t surprised when she stirred with a sleepy grunt of irritation. As quiet as he tried to be, she usually heard him in the mornings when he got up. He supposed her being a light sleeper might have something to do with her years at the orphanage as well as her time living on the streets or out of her van. Those conditions were no more conducive to restful slumber than his had been.

“Go back to sleep,” he said quietly, pausing at the foot of the bed.

“Time?” she said, a hand over her eyes.

“Early – go back to sleep.”

“M’kay,” she answered, turning onto her side again and snuggling into the pillow.

Ward looked at her for a moment, noting the way the sun crept through the blinds and warmed her skin, and the way it set fire to the lighter, honey streaks in her hair. Her breathing was quiet, even, and she was completely relaxed again.

Being as quiet as possible, he used the bathroom, brushed his teeth and shaved before putting on shorts and a t-shirt. He laced up his running shoes and headed downstairs. In the kitchen he made a protein shake and drank it while he checked the news headlines. Then he stretched, put his earbuds in and went outside for his morning run.

He wasn’t really listening to music, but wearing the earbuds discouraged people from trying to talk to him. Of course since it was Saturday, there were fewer people up and about at this early hour. Some of the older couples a few streets over were outside, puttering about gardens and yards or sitting on patios while drinking coffee. He raised his hand in greeting but didn’t stop.

It was a very peaceful neighborhood, perfect for quiet couples nearing retirement age or for younger couples with kids. Ward had been paying special attention to each house as he ran; he looked for the neighbors’ habits and quirks and matched them up to what he knew from reading their background checks. If anything changed later, for any reason, a red flag would be raised and he could assess why and if the changes posed a security risk.

However, in this neighborhood he wasn’t really anticipating any security threats from the neighbors themselves. Some were likely to be curious about him and Skye, and some of the unhappily marrieds might become a nuisance, Ava in particular. He’d have a better idea of potential issues after the barbecue that afternoon since Stacy had mentioned inviting other couples from the neighborhood.

By changing the time of his run that morning, he’d managed to avoid Ava. Ward got a large bottle of water from the fridge and checked the time. It was still only seven-thirty, so he didn’t expect Skye to be up for at least another hour. He made the coffee before going upstairs and continuing his workout. He did pushups and pull-ups, basic weight training and then wrapped his hands, going a few rounds with the bag.

It was just after eight-thirty when he finished. In the kitchen, Skye was already up and pulling out ingredients for breakfast.

“Hey,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. She had pulled her hair up into a messy bun on her head, but she was still wearing the shorts and tank she’d worn to bed.

There was something so appealing about her in the morning, and Ward felt those conflicting feelings from hours before surfacing once again.

“Hey,” he said, pulling his eyes from her. “Do you want me to help with breakfast?”

“No I’ve got it if you want to shower. Must have been some workout.”

He turned to look back at her, raising a questioning brow.

“It’s just… you’re very sweaty,” she said a little awkwardly.

She wasn’t wrong. He’d really pushed himself that morning, and his shirt and shorts were both sticking to his skin.

He pointed up to the ceiling. “I’ll just go and…”

“Yeah,” she answered, nodding her head.

He could feel her watching him as he walked out of the room, and he sighed. They were definitely going to have to talk about things before the barbecue.

***

Skye took her time with breakfast, waiting until she heard the shower turn off upstairs before she started the eggs. By the time Ward came downstairs, she was putting the eggs, bacon and toast onto plates. Ward got the juice from the fridge and poured some for both of them and then helped her carry the plates to the table.

They sat, and she said, “Sorry, it’s not as good as yours. The bacon is a little burned, and the omelets fell apart, so they’re more scrambled.”

“It’s fine,” he told her. “Thanks for making breakfast.”

“Just trying to pull my weight.” She took a bite of the overly crisp bacon and chewed slowly. Then she said, “So, have I made things completely awkward between us now?”

Ward sighed. “Things aren’t completely awkward, Skye.”

She raised her brows at that. “They’re a little awkward.”

“Fine. They’re a little awkward,” he allowed. “But they don’t have to be.”

Skye looked down at her plate as she nibbled her bottom lip. She’d passed out the previous night before Ward came to bed, but she’d awakened early that morning to find Ward snuggled up to her, and it had felt far too good. She hadn’t wanted to move, so she didn’t. Reaching for the hand splayed across her stomach, she’d placed hers over it and had fallen asleep again.

Physical desire was one thing. She understood it, and she had no problem with scratching an itch. While she’d never been particularly promiscuous, a couple of her partners had been nothing more than short term flings, and she was okay with that.

What freaked her out a lot more was emotional intimacy. She craved connections with people but she kept them at arm’s length as well. It was a trust issue, and she’d never been given good reasons to trust many people in her life. So while she was very attracted to Ward on a basic, physical level, she was jumpy about the emotional connection they were forging.

Since waking that morning, she’d thought a lot about her behavior the night before. Skye might have blamed the tequila, but she knew it was more than that. She’d tried to bring their connection back down to a level she understood. If they slept together, it was something she could process. She could understand where they stood with each other. It was a particularly destructive pattern, one that had hurt Miles, and she’d been on a dating hiatus since joining the agency in an attempt to break the bad habit.

And she thought she’d been successful until last night. Maybe the tequila had knocked down a few of her reservations, but she’d known exactly what she was doing when she attempted to seduce Ward. If he hadn’t pumped the brakes, she was reasonably certain she wouldn’t have either.

And now they were here. _Awkwardville, party of two_ , she thought with a small grimace. Worse, she’d apparently poured gasoline on her attraction because she’d wanted nothing more than to lick the sweat off his neck when he came in from his workout that morning. _When the hell will I learn?_

Ward was still looking at her, apparently waiting for her to respond. And since a full explanation was out of the question, she kept it simple. “Okay, here’s the deal. I haven’t dated anyone since Miles, so it has been Celibate City for this girl for over a year now. I realize that’s not your problem, but _a year_. You know what I mean?”

From the frozen expression on his face, she was guessing he didn’t.

After a moment, he said, “Okay. But you could – uh – you could… take care of that yourself.”

Skye knew she shouldn’t laugh, but the look on his face was hilarious. Pursing her lips and nodding, she asked, “So your suggestion is a little self-help in that department? What, do I hang a tie on the door when I’m otherwise occupied so you don’t get an accidental show?”

Ward heaved an exasperated sigh and sat back in his chair.

She held up her hands and laughed. “Sorry, it was your suggestion. I thought there might be a protocol for that too. A little something in the agency handbook, right alongside the intimacy exercises.”

“Look, I feel it too,” he said suddenly. “After last night, I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

Yeah, she was more than aware of that. Skye suppressed a shiver as the image of Ward hovering over her, his hips pushing insistently between her legs, surfaced in her mind.

A part of her wanted to just ask him what was so wrong with scratching the itch for the duration of the assignment. But even she knew what some of the potential problems might be; namely, if the attraction burned itself out, they still had to live together. If things were awkward now, she imagined it would be a lot worse in that situation.

“Okay, so what? We ignore it?” she asked.

“Not ignore it, exactly,” Ward explained carefully. “We still need some physical intimacy. But we have to keep it contained and know where the lines are so we don’t overstep.”

She didn’t bother to tell him she’d never been the girl who stayed within the lines. Even as a kid, she’d colored way outside the lines, and that had only continued into adulthood. Ward, on the other hand, was all about drawing lines. She’d pegged that about him within ten minutes of his interrogation a year ago.

“How about I follow your lead for now?” Skye suggested. Maybe she’d be more comfortable if she let him be the instigator. Then she could see how he approached it, and she could mirror that without climbing all over him like she’d done last night.

He eyed her thoughtfully and then stood up. He walked around the table and pulled her out of her chair and into his arms, linking his hands in the small of her back.

Skye swallowed and tried to squelch the nervous feeling that erupted inside her. “Somehow this isn’t the reaction I pictured you having to this conversation.”

“We can’t start overcorrecting, Skye. Trust me – it will only make things more awkward.” He raised a hand and toyed with the stray hairs falling from her bun. “Do you understand?”

No, she definitely didn’t, but she wanted to understand. She wanted to understand him and how he could be so cool and collected and restrained.

But was he? He was still playing with her hair, and the way he was looking at her didn’t exactly speak to cool restraint. It was probing, equal parts curiosity and awareness. There was no doubt that he wanted her even if he had no intention of following through on that want.

She allowed her hands to creep up his chest to his shoulders, enjoying the feel of the strong muscles beneath his shirt. “I understand.” And maybe she did – at least a little.

Ward smiled at her before releasing her and stepping back. They cleared the table, and Ward insisted on cleaning up since she’d cooked. Skye turned to the pantry to pull out ingredients for the hot corn chili dip she was planning to make for the Marbuts’ barbecue. It was Jemma’s recipe and one of the few things Skye could successfully make.

She’d picked up some grilled ears of corn in the deli section of the supermarket, and she’d already cut off the kernels. Now she sautéed garlic, onion, and green and red bell peppers in butter before adding a few chiles and stirring in the corn. Then she mixed mayonnaise, cream cheese, pepper jack, sour cream and onions in a bowl and combined it with the corn mixture.

Ward had finished the breakfast dishes and was watching her, occasionally handing over an ingredient she needed. Finally, he asked, “What is that supposed to be?”

“Hot corn chili dip,” Skye told him, wrapping tin foil over the top of the bowl. “It may not look very good right now, but after you bake it? Yum. I’ll put it in the oven about half an hour before we go to the barbecue.”

Skye went upstairs to shower and spent the rest of the morning surfing the Internet while Ward flipped between news channels and read his book. He’d finished Matterhorn and had moved on to a book about the history and current politics of North Korea. It was comfortable, she realized. Sitting like this with Miles used to drive her crazy, and yet she was oddly fine with this comfortable silence in Ward’s presence.

As if sensing her attention, Ward glanced up from his book, and she smiled before turning her attention back to her tablet.

***

The barbecue was in full swing, and Skye was seated at one of the patio tables with the neighborhood wives while the men congregated around the grill. The Bradfords were there with their nine-year-old twin boys, Michael and Eric. Ava and her husband, Ethan, were also in attendance, as were Stacy’s sister-in-law Aimee, her husband, Tony Milano, and their three girls: Sofia, age fifteen, Arya, age twelve, and Lizzie, age seven.

As Stacy had promised, it was a small gathering. Two of the families invited hadn’t been able to attend due to other commitments, but Skye was enjoying her time chatting with Stacy, Aimee, and Melanie. Even Ava wasn’t the total bitch Skye had pictured. She still watched Ward with a predatory interest that made Skye want to roll her eyes, but after meeting Ethan, she wasn’t sure she could blame her.

Ethan Brookes was, to put it mildly, bland. He was nice, if a bit distracted, and had mousy hair that wasn’t receding so much as beating a hasty retreat from his forehead. He was trim for a forty-year-old, and his eyes were an attractive shade of grey, but he didn’t seem in any way well matched with Ava, who had all the hallmarks of high maintenance. She was an expertly spray tanned bottle blonde with professionally whitened teeth, an obvious nose and boob job, and her perfectly smooth face hinted at regular Botox injections.

Skye turned her attention to the Bradfords as she sipped her iced tea. While Melanie Bradford, a petite but plump redhead, was a lovely woman, her husband Christopher was a douchewad of the first order. He was friendly enough, but it was clear he had an over-inflated idea of his own worth. And yeah, he was attractive – dark hair, blue eyes and dimples probably made him popular with a lot of ladies, but Skye’s bullshit detector went off every time he opened his mouth. He’d already hit on Skye when he caught her alone at the table, so she was inclined to sympathize with Melanie’s clandestine online chatting.

The Milanos seemed as steady as the Marbuts, but that wasn’t surprising since Aimee was Rob’s older sister and they appeared to come from a tight-knit family. Tony owned, and was head chef for, a popular Italian restaurant called Milano’s while Aimee was a well-known real estate agent in the area.

Snacks like Skye’s corn dip, chips, hummus, and a large vegetable tray had been placed on one of the tables. Skye could see that Tony had taken charge of the grill, assisted by Rob and Ward, while Ethan and Christopher watched. Ward had traded his jeans for a pair of black board shorts and a white t-shirt, and Skye was wearing a red halter neck bikini underneath a blue floral sundress. She’d picked up a few more summer outfits and the bikini before leaving D.C., and she couldn’t help wondering what Ward would think of it.

Stacy and Rob had pulled their shaded patio tables closer to the pool, and the women were talking while keeping an eye on the kids in the water. Sofia was a junior lifeguard, so she remained in the pool with the Bradford boys and her younger sisters.

“Sofia has a good attitude about watching the younger kids,” Skye commented.

“Oh, we’re paying her,” Aimee remarked dryly. “She’d do it anyway, but I know that hanging out with younger kids all day on a Saturday is a drag for her. She might think I don’t remember what it was like to be a teenage girl, but I actually do.”

Skye laughed at that. “Well, she’s lucky to have the cool mom then.” Standing, she shook her glass. “Anyone need a refill?”

“Could you bring out a new pitcher?” Stacy asked. She was busy feeding Olivia, who was making quite a mess.

“Sure,” she replied. She caught Ward’s eye as she walked towards the house, raising her glass to see if he wanted anything. He nodded and smiled at her.

Skye got one of the large pitchers of iced tea with lemon from the fridge and grabbed another bottle of water for Ward. Turning around, she was startled to see Ward had followed her.

“I don’t really need help,” she said, pushing the fridge door closed with her foot.

Ward took the pitcher from her. “I know, but Christopher suddenly needed to use the bathroom as soon as he saw you coming inside.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, okay. Thanks for that.” The last thing she wanted was to be forced into another conversation with him.

Ward put his arm around her as they walked back outside. When they reached the table, Stacy was cleaning up Olivia’s mess and the women were preparing to go into the swimming pool. Ava had long discarded her cover-up, choosing to flaunt her toned body in a hot pink bikini that left little to the imagination. Stacy was also wearing a two piece swimsuit, though the cut was far more modest than Ava’s, and Melanie and Aimee were both wearing one piece suits.

Ward set the pitcher on the table and took the bottle of water Skye was holding.

“What’s the ETA on food?” Skye asked, refilling her glass and taking a sip.

“Twenty minutes,” he told her. “You have time for a swim.”

Skye nodded and set her glass down on the table before untying the straps of her sundress and pulling it over her head in one smooth move. Ward didn’t say anything, but the way his eyes darkened told Skye he appreciated the view.

When she turned towards the pool, Ward suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Hamburger or spare ribs?”

“Burger,” she replied, her tone slightly breathless.

Ward went back to the grill and Skye stepped into the pool to join the other women, who had been watching them with avid interest.

“Oh the honeymoon phase, and how I miss it,” Aimee said with a laugh. “So when are you two making it official?”

Skye shrugged. “Probably next year, but we haven’t set an exact date yet. We met a year ago and it’s all been kind of a whirlwind since then.”

“Well, he obviously adores you,” Stacy said with a smile. “And I saw you two running around the front lawn yesterday. Was that a water gun battle?”

She nodded and grinned. “I ambushed him, and I’m sure he’ll plot his revenge at some point.”

Skye was surprised by how well she fit in with the suburbanites. She felt a little weird at times because it was all oddly domestic in a way she wasn’t used to, but she was able to participate in their small talk and comment on their interests. These weren’t the type of women she’d ever socialized with, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter that much.

When the food was ready, they pulled the tables close so they could all sit together. Skye helped Stacy and Aimee serve the kids at their table before seating herself beside Grant. He’d already fixed her plate, and her stomach rumbled as she smelled the grilled meat.

Taking a bite of the burger, she practically had a foodgasm. “Oh my God. This is the best burger I’ve ever tasted. What’s different?” She held it out to Ward, who also took a bite.

“It’s the marinade,” Tony replied. “And a few spices I add when I make the patties.”

Ava had managed to snag the chair on the other side of Ward and spent the meal trying to engage him in conversation, much to Skye’s amusement. He’d caught the attention of most of the women there, including the teenage Sofia, who had blushed scarlet when he spoke to her.

Ward seemed to take it in stride, and she wondered if he was oblivious or just so used to it that it didn’t register. Then again, she had trouble believing he didn’t notice these things since he was trained to notice everything. It was more likely he simply ignored it.

After they finished eating, Skye and Ward went into the pool to help Sofia watch the younger kids. Skye and Sofia played water games with the girls, and Ward kept an eye on the boys. When exhaustion finally hit the kids, they all got out and Sofia took them inside to rest and watch a movie.

Ward handed a towel to Skye before using his own to dry off. Her eyes were drawn to the droplets of water sliding down his chest and traversing his perfectly sculpted abdominal muscles. She could hardly blame the neighbor women for their surreptitious glances when she couldn’t control it either.

When they were leaving, Tony and Aimee extracted a promise that they’d come by the restaurant for dinner the following week. Skye felt oddly content as they walked across the street to their house. Of course it wasn’t really their house, something she’d begun reminding herself of periodically. Because somewhere between painting and hanging photos, whether it was real or not, it had become her first home, and that mattered to her more than she wanted to admit.

Ward had walked ahead of her, and she stopped dead when she saw him emerging from the garage with a water gun in his hand.

“A girl I met a while ago told me that paybacks are a bitch,” Ward said conversationally, advancing on her while pointing the gun in her direction.

“Uh – I think that was me,” Skye said warily, backing up. “After you threatened me with that truth serum.”

“Well, that might have been the truest thing she said that day.”

Skye shrieked with laughter as the water hit her square in the stomach, and she took off running across the front lawn with Ward right behind her.

**A/N: Late, I know. And I didn’t have time to keep editing, so no Miles yet. (It’s coming, I swear.) I just didn’t want to make you guys wait another day because I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to work on editing tomorrow or not. It’s been a bit of a bad week, unfortunately.**

**Up Next – Miles and Ward meet. Promise it’s in the next one! Also, I’m working on an AU series of one shots. I’ve titled the series ‘The Head and the Heart’ and it is seven one shots that start with a meet-cute/one night stand with Skye and Ward that turns complicated for a number of reasons. The series then details how their relationship develops (tentative titles below):**

  1. **One night (between the bars)**
  2. **Remember when (can we push rewind?)**
  3. **The only exception (is where the lines overlap)**
  4. **When your heart is in it (but your head just isn’t)**
  5. **Love is a fragile little flame (it can burn out)**
  6. **This is what it feels like (and it hurts)**
  7. **Bumper cars (I’ll crash into you)**



**I’ll get the next part of UMS posted as soon as I can. The first story of the above series is also finished, so I might be posting it in the next week or so. If you guys have any short (drabble or one shot) prompts you’d like me to tackle, you can find me on Tumblr under the same username. Just send me a message and I’ll see what I can come up with. I’ve already got another idea for a multi-chapter fic, but it’s still in the outlining/planning stages. We’ll see how that goes.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N – I was going to post an excerpt of this on Tumblr but decided to just post the chapter and be done with it because I’m sick, and I don’t have the energy to continue editing. And this chapter is massive at more than 8,000 words. It used to be 4,000 words but I kept adding to it every time I sat down to edit last week, and here we are. Technically it should be two chapters, but I’ve been behind on updating so I decided to post it all in one chapter. Full disclosure – I have the flu and my flu meds have me feeling loopy and weirdly wide awake, so I’m not sure how well I edited the end of the chapter. Let me know if you see anything weird. Oh, and someone asked why my editing process takes so long, so I thought I would answer that here. Editing means a lot of things to me – it’s adding scenes to help bridge gaps or adding descriptive details, it’s looking for words and phrases I’ve used too much, it’s checking my sentence structure, it’s making sure I didn’t make a continuity gaffe, etc. In other words, it’s time consuming – probably too time consuming for the fan fic world, but in my OCDness I tend to approach all my writing the same way. Hope that answers it!**

** Chapter 9 **

Skye watched Ward turning the stuffed cabbage in one pan before checking the pork cutlets and potatoes in another one. “What is this called again?” she asked, stirring the red sauce he’d placed her in charge of.

“The cabbage rolls are called golabki,” he explained. “We’ll pour the tomato sauce over them. We also have kotlet schabowy, or Polish pork schnitzel, and potatoes.”

She sniffed appreciatively. “It smells good. Where did you learn how to make this? This doesn’t seem like bachelor food.”

“I was undercover at the embassy in Warsaw for sixteen months. I posed as a Russian attaché,” he told her. “That was about five years after I left the SHIELD academy.”

“Sixteen months – it’s a long time,” she commented. “Who taught you to cook? Girlfriend?”

“She was my mark, not my girlfriend.” He turned off the stove and began scooping the cabbage rolls onto a plate. “But yes, she taught me how to make this and a few other things.”

His mark. It was times like this that Skye realized how different they were. She couldn’t imagine spending sixteen months getting close to someone only to betray them, but that had probably been Ward’s life for the last ten years. “What was her name?”

He glanced at her curiously as he moved the pork cutlets and potatoes onto plates. “Kamila. Why?”

Skye shrugged, turning her attention back to the tomato sauce. “It’s just… a girl named Kamila who teaches you how to make schnitzel doesn’t exactly sound like the devil.”

“The world isn’t that simple, Skye. I can’t give you details because it’s classified, but Kamila was connected to people – people who had no problems hurting other people. She knew things.” Ward turned to face Skye as he wiped his hands on a towel. “Was she the devil? No. But she wasn’t innocent either. You need to keep that in mind because when you start at Quinn Worldwide, you’re going to be tempted to trust people who can’t be trusted. You can’t let yourself forget, even for a moment, that this is a mission and you have an objective.”

“No, I know that. I’m just glad that they didn’t ask me to get close to someone like that. I don’t think I could date someone, pretend to care about them, and then use them.” Skye suddenly realized how that sounded and tried to backtrack. “Wait, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not saying you’re a terrible person, I’m just saying it must be hard to fool people into thinking… you know what? I’m just going to stop talking while I can still dig my foot out of my mouth.”

Ward smiled at that. “It’s not easy, and it changes the way you look at the world, but when you have a mission? You keep your eyes on the objective and do what you have to do. It’s also why there are so few specialists. Not everyone is cut out for that type of field work.”

Skye poured the tomato sauce into a bowl as she thought about what he’d told her. She couldn’t help wondering what years of those kinds of missions did to a person. She’d called Ward a robot when she met him, but she could see how that might have been a learned behavior or even a survival mechanism. Whereas she’d developed snark and an attitude to cope, he’d learned to shut down. This new insight added yet another piece to the puzzle that was Grant Ward.

She couldn’t believe how quickly she had come to trust him. There were, of course, different levels of trust, but she trusted Ward to guide her in this mission. She trusted him to protect her, and she was even beginning to trust him as a friend and a partner. For Skye, those were big steps since she’d never been one to trust without reason, however much she might want to.

They each fixed their plates and Ward carried them to the table while Skye brought in the wine she’d opened earlier. She topped off both their glasses before taking a seat across from Ward.

Skye was impressed when she tasted the food. “Okay, this tastes even better than it smells.”

“If I spend a long time in one place, I usually learn how to cook something,” he told her. “I’m usually alone on most missions.”

“Is it hard having me here all the time?” she asked. It was something else she’d been wondering about; she worried that he would get tired of having her constantly under foot.

Ward looked up at her, smiling slightly. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. You and I see the world differently, Skye, but that’s not always a bad thing.”

“I guess I should be sorry that I gave you such a hard time that day in interrogation, but I’d be lying if I said I was,” she confessed, forking up another bite of the schnitzel and combining it with a piece of the cabbage roll. “Even though being caught was part of my plan, I felt entitled to be difficult after you threw a bag over my head, cuffed me, and tossed me in the back of your car like a sack of potatoes.”

“And I guess I should say I’m sorry that I did that, but then I’d be lying. I thought you were a cyber-terrorist, and my previous dealings with the Rising Tide weren’t good.”

“Yeah, I get that now. But I can say, honestly, that I’m glad Coulson asked you to be my partner,” Skye said, feeling almost shy about her admission. “I think I can learn a lot from this, and from you.”

He met her eyes for a moment. “Maybe we can both learn something.”

After dinner, Skye washed dishes and handed them over to Ward to rinse and dry. They were really settling into the domestic routine, and it still surprised her whenever Ward helped around the house without complaint. Her own limited experience with men and domesticity was vastly different.

“You know, the first time Miles invited me over to his place for dinner, he showed me the kitchen and thought I could cook something,” Skye said, laughing at that particular memory and her own incredulous reaction to his expectations. “We mostly ordered in after that.”

“I can teach you to cook,” Ward said, taking a plate from her. “It’s a useful skill, especially when I need to keep a low profile. Ordering in isn’t really an option during certain missions.”

“I’d like that.” She handed over the last plate and picked up the dishcloth, using it to wipe down the stove and countertops.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow?’ he asked. “I know this isn’t going to be easy, especially if Miles has a problem with you being engaged.”

She sighed, rinsing the cloth and setting it aside before washing her hands. “Truth? I’m not feeling that great about it, but I’ll deal. That’s one thing life in an orphanage prepared me for – dealing.” She really didn’t feel up to talking about it either.

As if sensing her reluctance, he changed the subject. “We need to work out a code,” he said. “Something to let the other person know if there’s a problem, like our cover being compromised.”

“Okay,” Skye said. “What kind of code?”

“Text me whenever you’re leaving the office and on the way here. Not while you’re in the office though – wait until you’re in the car. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll know there’s a problem. If you think your cover is blown and you need me to come for you, ask me to stop and get some milk on the way home.”

She tried not to laugh, but a small, unladylike snort escaped. “Seriously? What if we _actually_ need milk?”

He crossed his arms and raised a brow. “That’s a legitimate couple thing that no one will think twice about. If we really need milk, we can stop and get it ourselves.”

“Fine. What if I think my cover is blown but I can get away on my own?”

“Then you tell me that you’re stopping for milk on the way home. After that, you ditch the phone and go directly to the safe house I told you about. It’s stocked with phones, cash, weapons – whatever we might need. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

Skye nodded, remembering the coordinates he’d given her for the safe house in downtown L.A.

“Do you remember where it is?”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she nodded again. “You made me show you on the map five times, so yes. I remember.”

“And I’ll probably ask you to show me again,” he said patiently. “If I send you a message asking you to pick up milk, then you leave work and go straight to the safe house. No stops. If I think the situation warrants it, I’ll come get you and we’ll go together.”

“Got it. Milk messages are important.” She picked up her wine glass and sipped the red wine. “Now, I’m going to take my wine upstairs and have a bath in the pool masquerading as our tub.”

Something flashed in his eyes at her words, and she looked away, biting her lip uncertainly. They’d been careful with one another since their impromptu makeout session on the living room sofa. Toeing the line between their cover and reality without overcorrecting was proving difficult, though, and Skye often felt confused about where the lines should be drawn.

The problem was that she liked being close to Ward, and she liked spending time with him. She thought he felt a little of that too, but stories like the one about his undercover mission in Warsaw reminded her that he was vastly more experienced with deep cover ops. She would bet everything she owned that Kamila never suspected a thing, and she knew she couldn’t afford to forget what they were really doing here.

Skye headed upstairs with a large glass of wine and ran her bath, adding some lavender vanilla bath salts she’d picked up in town earlier that afternoon. She’d also bought some casual business attire – two skirts, three pairs of pants, three jackets, a few blouses, and two new pairs of shoes. They could all be mixed and matched, and the jackets could also be worn over a couple of dresses she already owned, so she felt confident about her work wardrobe.

As a consultant for SHIELD, she’d worn casual pants and jeans to the office more often than not, so this would be her first experience dressing the part of an office worker. She hoped that the wardrobe upgrade would also serve to remind Miles that she wasn’t the same person he had known. Just like the ring she wore, it was part of her cover. She was going to be a more grown-up version of the Skye with whom he was familiar, and she needed these little differences to throw Miles off enough that he would buy into her new life.

Skye twisted her hair up and got into the tub, leaning back and listening to the tunes of Sir Sly as she sipped her wine. She soaked in the warm, scented water until she felt her fingers pruning up. Then she got out and dried off, taking her time smoothing lotion over her still damp skin before putting on the tank and shorts she usually slept in. She had several sets in different colors; this tank was bright blue, and the white shorts had colorful, dancing ones and zeroes on them.

She made sure she cleaned up after herself in the bathroom as was her habit now. She shook the excess water from her bath sponge and hung it in a place that wouldn’t drip water on the floor, and she hung her towel on the rack before wiping up the water around the sink. Skye unclipped her hair and tossed the clip in the basket that contained her makeup, grabbed her hairbrush and one of the hair elastics, and walked out of the bathroom.

Skye saw that the closet light was on, and she could hear Ward moving around inside as she sat down on the bed to brush her hair. She sensed the exact moment that Ward approached the bed even though he moved quietly. She couldn’t hear him or even see him, but her other senses always picked up the slack and let her know he was near. The air shifted, and the small hairs on her arms rose with a sense of anticipation.

It was becoming a familiar habit; she said nothing as she let him take the brush, closing her eyes and enjoying the feel of the soft bristles of the brush sliding through her hair and the way his fingers combed through the strands in its wake. It was completely innocent, but it still felt like foreplay, and it heightened the attraction she already felt. It was utterly bizarre that she’d had sex that didn’t feel this intimate, and she didn’t know what to do with that realization.

After a few minutes he put the brush down and braided her hair. She handed him the hair elastic, and he used it to secure the braid before standing up and heading into the bathroom. Skye fell back against the pillows and stifled a groan. She was so, so screwed, and unfortunately, it wasn’t in the way she wanted to be.

She could hear the shower running and knew Ward would be coming to bed soon. Pulling back the duvet, Skye turned off the overhead light and switched on the lamp on Ward’s side of the bed. Then she slid into bed, turned on her side, and tried not to imagine what he looked like in the shower. This time she did groan and pulled one of the pillows over her head.

Suddenly, she remembered the ceiling tiles above her bunk at St. Agnes. They’d been covered in stars – the kind kids stuck to their walls and ceilings to mimic the constellations. The yellow glow had already started to fade by the time Skye moved into that particular room, but she’d still been able to see them well enough to count them as she went to sleep every night.

It had been a long time since Skye thought about those stars. But she needed to clear her mind, and that was one thing counting stars had always been good for. Sighing, she turned onto her back, relaxed, and fixed the image in her mind once again as she began to count.

***

Skye stood in front of the mirror and considered her new and improved image. She’d chosen a black skirt for her first day in the office, and she’d paired it with a short-sleeved, dark green blouse. It was a one hundred and eighty degree turn from anything she’d ever worn before. However, the hemline of the pencil skirt flirted with the line between modest and sexy while still being office appropriate and the green blouse had a v neck with a row of black hook and eye closures that added visual interest. It still fit her personality while not being exactly her, and she was pleased with the result.

She slipped on her low heeled black pumps and considered her hair, finally deciding to leave it down. She put her jacket over her arm and walked downstairs to find the kitchen empty. It was nearly eight, and she knew Ward had been up for a couple of hours. He’d made the coffee, and the paper was on the island, so he must have come back from his run.

One look out the window confirmed he was back. He’d pulled the SUV into the driveway and was checking something under the hood. Skye poured coffee into her travel mug, added a splash of cream and considered her breakfast options. She was too nervous to be hungry, so she slipped a granola bar and a banana into her bag for later.

When she walked out through the garage, Ward looked up at her. She didn’t miss the appreciative way his gaze swept over her body, and she felt a little tingle of satisfaction. Maybe it wasn’t all for him, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t considered what he would think of her new look.

“Please tell me I don’t have car trouble on the first day,” she said, raising a brow.

Ward shook his head and closed the hood. “No. I was just checking.”

“For what? Car bombs?” she joked, smiling. When he didn’t smile back, her smile faded. “Please tell me you weren’t checking for car bombs. That is not something I need to add to my list of things to freak out about.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about car bombs,” he told her. “This is more a habit of mine than anything else. I’ll feel better if I check the car out every morning before you leave.”

“Should I be checking something specific before I leave work?” she asked, side-eying the car suspiciously. As if she didn’t have enough things to worry about, now she had to worry about explosive devices?

Ward put his hands on her shoulders. “Skye, you don’t have to worry about car bombs. If I thought you did, I would tell you, okay? So breathe.”

She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry. I guess I’m nervous.”

“If you can handle being kidnapped and interrogated by a SHIELD agent, I think you can handle Miles and Quinn Worldwide. You impressed Romanoff, you know.”

“I did?” she asked, surprised by that little bit of information. “Wait, was she watching the interrogation? Because that’s embarrassing.”

“For both of us, actually. If I remember correctly, she used the words ‘chasing my own tail’ when describing it later,” he said dryly.

“Talking around people is something I excel at,” she admitted, grinning up at him. “Mostly I just wanted to piss you off, though. You got this squeezed lemon look on your face, and it amused me.”

He laughed and shook his head. “That figures. You weren’t intimidated at all, were you?”

“At first, yes. I didn’t know who you were. But later? I don’t know how to explain it, but I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, so…” she shrugged.

A strange expression crossed his face. “How could you possibly have known that, though?”

“I don’t know. I just did,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stacy wave as she walked down to the mailbox, and she waved back. Meeting his eyes again, she looped her arms around his neck. “Wish me luck?”

Ward kissed her gently. “Good luck and have a good day.”

Skye got into the car, placing her jacket and bag in the passenger seat and her travel mug in the cup holder. She took a moment to adjust the seat and mirrors before waving at Ward and backing out of the driveway.

***

Skye’s first morning at Quinn Worldwide was busy. As a new hire she had a mountain of paperwork to fill out for taxes, health insurance, the 401k plan, and the pension plan. After arriving at eight-thirty, it took her almost three hours to finish up in Human Resources, and then she had to go to the security office for her ID badge. After she got her ID badge, a well-dressed woman with sleek, blonde hair escorted her up to the executive floor to meet with Ian Quinn.

“Skye,” Ian said, shaking her hand. “Please, have a seat.”

Their chat was brief but reinforced the charming, philanthropist vibe she’d gotten from Quinn during her initial interview. Of course she knew appearances could be deceiving, and she recalled what Ward had said about it not being as simple as good and evil. Quinn asked about the house and how they were settling in before broaching the subject of her fiancé.

“What does he do?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Grant was in the Army up until a month ago – a Special Forces unit,” Skye replied. “He got out so we could be together. Honestly, it’s the reason I took this job.”

He gave a knowing nod. “I imagine your past with the Rising Tide rules out him being recruited by big agencies like SHIELD and the CIA.”

She smiled and shrugged. “He seems to think I’m worth it, and I’m not planning to argue with him.”

“I have no doubt you are,” Quinn said. “Your aptitude test results were off the charts, so I feel fortunate to be welcoming you to the fold. What kind of work is Grant looking for?”

“Probably something in the private security sector, but he’s not rushing into anything,” Skye answered casually. “This is the first long break he’s had in about ten years, so he’s concentrating on the house at the moment.”

She knew Ward didn’t want to push for a job at Quinn Worldwide too soon. He’d told her that might raise suspicions, and she could see his point.

“We could probably use a man with his talents here as well,” Quinn told her. “Unlike some companies, I encourage inter-office relationships as long as the couple in question doesn’t allow it to interfere with their work, and we have a lot of married couples working here. Happy, stable families stick with the company longer too, so we all get something out of it.”

“I’ll definitely mention it to him,” she said.

They talked for a few more minutes and then Quinn asked the blonde woman to walk her down to the Applied Technology department where she’d be working. Skye’s nerves came rushing back because she knew Miles would be there, and the memory of his crushed look when he’d noticed her engagement ring still made her feel terrible.

Skye met her immediate supervisor first, a man named Walter Wallingham. She pegged his age at early forties and while he wore a suit, the jacket was wrinkled and his tie had a small spot near the base. His salt and pepper hair was thinning a bit, and she noticed a tan line on his ring finger that marked him as recently divorced, which probably explained his slightly unkempt appearance.

“Just call me Wally,” he said, shaking her hand enthusiastically.

Skye tried not to wince as she withdrew her hand from his firm grasp. “Wally. Nice to meet you.”

“You’ll be sitting over here,” he told her, leading her down a row of large cubicles to an empty desk at the end. A few men and women turned to look at them, but Skye didn’t see Miles among them.

The cream and black desk was all curves rather than sharp angles, and she could see that the computer was positioned at just the right angle to allow her to work comfortably. She also noted that the walls of the cubicle were high enough to allow a semblance of privacy. She sat down in the chair and leaned back. It was surprisingly comfortable for office furniture, and she wondered if it was something else Quinn did to promote happy, healthy employees.

To her left there were a few drawers built into the desk unit, and there was a small filing cabinet to her right. A small, overhead storage locker featured a lock, so she would be able to keep her purse or other valuables there. Aside from the computer, a phone and a few stackable trays, the desk was empty. She would definitely need to bring some photos or something to brighten the place up.

“The drawers should be stocked with office supplies, and you can ask for anything else you need,” Wally said. “I’ve been over your attitude tests, and I think I have a few projects you’ll enjoy working on. We’ll start you off small, let you get a feel for how we work in this department.”

She nodded. “Sounds good.”

“If you want to go ahead and get settled into your desk, I’ll send you a few files by email. Lunch is whenever you want to take it unless we have a meeting or a deadline. Then we usually order in. We also encourage you to leave your work here unless we’re crunching a deadline. We generally work a standard nine to five day. You may have to work late on certain projects, but then you’ll be given time off to compensate. Bottom line, we want you to be happy enough to stick around because employee longevity means good things for the company.”

“That seems to be Mr. Quinn’s motto,” Skye observed.

“Mr. Quinn’s a good man,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave you to get your workstation sorted out, and I’ll send you those files. You can read up on the projects this afternoon and give me your thoughts tomorrow morning.”

After Wally left, Skye logged into the computer with the ID and password she’d been issued and then quickly changed the password. She already had several emails in her inbox. Most were from Human Resources, but Wally had also sent a department overview along with the promised project files.

She took a few minutes to respond to the emails from HR before turning her attention to the department overview. When her stomach growled, she glanced at her phone and realized it was twelve-thirty. She’d eaten her banana a couple of hours earlier and though the granola bar was still in her bag, she knew she’d need something more substantial than that to get through the afternoon.

Glancing around, she saw that a few people had already left for lunch. She remembered that Wally had mentioned ordering lunch in, so she headed for his office to see if he had any menus and literally bumped into Miles coming around the corner.

“God – sorry,” Skye said, pulling back and stepping out of his path.

“No problem,” Miles answered.

An awkward silence ensued, and she glanced at the two people with Miles. A slender woman with bright blue eyes and a short, edgy black bob stood to his left and didn’t seem happy to see Skye at all. To her left was a young man probably about Skye’s age. He was tall and slight of build with thick brown hair, boyish features, and wire-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down his nose.

She noticed they were all dressed a bit more casually than she was. The woman was wearing chocolate brown dress pants and a red, button-down blouse with sensible flats, and the men both wore khaki slacks and dress shirts. Seeing Miles wearing something other than jeans was a surprise, and the way he was looking at her said he shared the feeling. His eyes drifted to her ring finger, and she fought the urge to hide the ring behind her back.

“Are you settling in okay?” Miles asked suddenly.

“Yeah. I’ve been in HR most of the day, and I’m just reviewing files this afternoon,” she answered.

The tall man held out his hand. “I’m Brian Maitland.”

“Skye Coulson,” she said, noting the way Miles glanced at her in confusion at the unfamiliar last name. He was aware of most of her previous aliases, but Coulson was new to him.

When the woman remained silent, Brian cleared his throat. “This is Megan Brock. We were just headed out for lunch if you’d like to join us.”

Skye was certain she’d rather be set on fire while running naked through downtown L.A. and judging by Megan and Miles’ expressions, they felt the same way. “Thanks, but I thought I’d just order in while I start going through project files.”

The relief on Miles’ face stung, and Skye swallowed down a feeling of hurt. The situation was awkward, and it probably would be for a while, but the fact that he couldn’t even endure eating lunch with her didn’t bode well for their working relationship. Her appetite gone, she walked back to her desk and sat, leaning back in her chair and sighing heavily.

“Well, that was weird. What’s the story with you two anyway?”

Skye looked up to see a young woman with strawberry blonde hair and curious green eyes staring at her from the cubicle across the aisle. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I guess I should introduce myself first. I’m Hannah Richardson. And you’re Skye, right? The Skye that Miles used to be excited about coming here,” Hannah said as she pushed a lock of her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “I got the impression you used to date. Then he suddenly stopped talking about you last week, and now that awkward little scene.”

Skye wasn’t sure how to respond and remained silent. The last thing she wanted was to start office gossip on her first day.

Reading the indecision on Skye’s face, Hannah said, “Sorry – again. I guess it’s none of my business. I’m curious, but I’m not one to spread tales if that’s what you’re worried about. The way Miles talked about you, I just had this feeling we’d be friends.”

It was bound to come out anyway, so Skye held out her left hand; the diamond sparkled even under the office lights. “Long story short, he found out last week that my fiancé came to California with me.”

Hannah rolled her chair over to get a closer look at the ring. “Nice ring. My dad owns a jewelry store, so I have an eye for gemstones. Your fiancé has good taste. What’s his name?”

“Grant,” Skye replied. “We just bought a house in La Brea.”

“Well, that explains it,” Hannah said. “Megan, Miles, Brian and I all live in the same apartment complex, and Miles was asking the office about available apartments a couple of weeks ago. But then I asked him about it this weekend and he said you already had a place to live.”

“We got here last week, and I happened to run into Miles when I was buying groceries,” Skye explained. “I knew he’d be surprised but we haven’t seen each other in over a year. I just didn’t expect it to be this awkward.”

“He’ll get over it,” Hannah said confidently, though not without sympathy. “They always do. I love Miles, but he shouldn’t have made assumptions. At least Megan will probably warm up to you now. She kind of has a thing for Miles, so she’s been in a mood since he started talking about you.”

“I guess that explains the cold shoulder,” Skye said with a sigh.

“Are you hungry? I was going to order in for lunch today.” She grabbed a few menus from her desk drawer. “What are you in the mood for?”

They settled on Greek food and upon discovering Skye’s love of food trucks, Hannah promised to take her to a few of her own favorites. They continued to talk while they ate, and Hannah showed Skye several photos of her family before asking if Skye had a photo of Ward.

Skye pulled out her phone and pulled up some photos from their road trip.

“Hello, cutie,” Hannah said, grinning impishly at Skye. “If you get tired of him, I’ll take him off your hands.”

Skye laughed. “I think I’ll keep him around for a while, thanks. He’s pretty useful in the kitchen.”

“And he can cook? Clearly you won the fiancé lotto,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes. “The last time a guy cooked for me, I got food poisoning.”

“We had Polish food last night,” Skye told her. “Something schbotsky? Okay, I can’t remember, but it was stuffed cabbage with tomato sauce and pork schnitzel and potatoes. I made the salad and stirred the tomato sauce – and opened the wine. The rest was all him.”

“Is he Polish?”

“No, he’s just traveled a lot. He was in the Army up until a month ago,” Skye said.

After they finished eating, Hannah rolled back over to her own cubicle, and Skye got to work. She spent the rest of the afternoon going through the project files Wally had sent her. One of them was for a small, super light tablet that would be compatible with popular wireless hacking tools. Most hackers used laptops or netbooks for serious hacking, though some hacks were possible with phones and certain Linux based tablets. Skye had modified her own phones and tablets in the past, and so had Miles, but being able to run complicated hacks from a tablet this size would definitely cause a stir in the hacker community.

Five o’clock came faster than she expected. Skye logged off her computer and walked out with Hannah. Miles was talking to Megan outside; he raised a hand in greeting when Hannah waved, but he made no move to join them.

“We usually go out for drinks after work on Fridays,” Hannah told Skye. “You should join us this week. Maybe it will help.”

“Fridays are usually date night,” Skye said. “And since date nights were my idea, I’d feel bad about ditching Grant.” Date nights had also become one of the highlights of her week, and she selfishly didn’t want to give that up.

“So bring him,” Hannah said firmly. “I know you’re being sensitive to Miles and his feelings, but I really think he’ll come around when he gives it some thought.”

“I’ll think about it,” Skye hedged. Waving goodbye, she hit the lock release button on her keyless entry and got in the car. She locked it again and pulled out her phone to send Ward a text that she was on her way.

When she got home, she found Ward marinating steaks in the kitchen. “Dinner?”

He nodded before covering the steaks and placing the dish in the refrigerator. “I thought I’d try out our new grill. We have a nice patio area, so we can look for tables if you want to. I figured you’d enjoy having Rob and Stacy over some time.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Ward looked at her. “So? How was it?”

“Great office, interesting job, and Miles hates me,” Skye said with a grimace.

“He doesn’t hate you, Skye.”

“Maybe not, but he couldn’t even stand to invite me to lunch with his friends. I’m clearly the outsider. Thank God for Hannah,” she said. “We ordered lunch and talked a little. They’re friends and she seems to think Miles will get over it, but I’m not so sure.”

“Hannah?” he questioned.

“Richardson – and yes, I’ll look into her and everyone else I met today,” Skye said. “Megan Brock decided she didn’t like me before I arrived, mostly because she has a thing for Miles. Brian Maitland was friendly, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. My supervisor, Wally, is nice and extremely enthusiastic about his job. That’s it, really. I spent most of my morning in HR and then met briefly with Ian Quinn.”

“Anything interesting there?”

She shook her head. “Nope. He did bring up the possibility of you coming to work for the company, though. Don’t worry - I played it cool but I said I would mention it.”

“Okay, good. Why don’t you go change? Then I have something I want to show you outside.”

“What is it?” she asked curiously.

“You’ll see.”

Skye hurried to change into shorts and a T-shirt before sliding her feet into a pair of flip-flops. When she walked downstairs, she saw that Ward was already outside on the patio getting the grill started.

Joining him on the patio, she asked, “So what do you want to show me? The grill?”

He shook his head. “Do you notice anything different about the yard?”

Skye glanced over the yard, and at first she missed it. It wasn’t until her gaze swept the trees for the second time that she saw the tire swing. Ward had attached it to a low hanging branch of the sturdy oak tree that had reminded Skye of a tree at the Brody’s house. She’d mentioned the tire swing in passing the first day they moved in. It was a happy memory of a particularly good day with the family she had begun to hope would keep her. Not only had Ward remembered it, he’d somehow realized the significance behind the swing even though she hadn’t gone into detail.

She bit her lip when she felt it trembling, and a surge of emotion swept through her. “You did that for me?”

“I knew you were dreading seeing Miles today. I thought if it went badly, this might cheer you up,” he said quietly.

Skye nodded, turned to Ward and hugged him fiercely. “Thank you. And I know snuggies aren’t your thing, but I need one.”

Ward wrapped his arms around her, and she felt him relax into the hug a little. They stood that way for a few minutes, and Skye allowed the day’s tension to ebb away. It amazed her that something as simple as human contact could make such a difference, but there was no question that it did. She finally released him and tugged his hand, leading him across the yard to the tire swing.

***

Fridays turned out to be casual Fridays at Quinn Worldwide, and Skye had celebrated the end of her first week by wearing a cute, red dress she’d bought when Jemma threw out most of her plaid shirts and forced her into the nearest shopping mall for a day of retail therapy.

The dress was sleeveless and featured snap closures that could be left open to tease cleavage. The waist was cinched with a wide, black leather belt, and she’d worn a black linen jacket over the dress for the office. The hem fell above the knee, so she’d paired the dress with her black leather, knee high boots.

It was almost five, so Skye went to the restroom with her makeup bag. A little grey eye shadow blended into the crease of her eyelid achieved the smoky eye effect she liked, and she used a slate blue pencil to line her upper lids before smudging a bit at the outer corners and sweeping a new coat of mascara on her lashes.

She used a pearly shade of cream on the inner corners of her eyes to lighten the overall effect before lining her lips with a waterproof nude pencil and slicking mint flavored gloss over it. Skye opened a couple of the snaps on the front of her dress, allowing her layered necklace to emphasize the swell of her breasts.

When she returned to her desk, she exchanged the linen jacket for the black leather jacket with three quarter length sleeves she’d brought with her. She folded the linen jacket over her arm and picked up her bag. Her phone beeped, and she Ward’s message that he was waiting for her in the lobby. He’d dropped her off at work that morning and kept the car so he could pick up the patio table and chairs they’d chosen online. Since Friday was date night anyway, they’d decided to leave from the office.

Most of her co-workers were already gone, eager to start the weekend. She hadn’t spent much time talking to anyone other than Hannah, though the people working in her department were generally helpful. Megan’s attitude had softened since learning Skye was engaged, but she still landed more on the side of civil than friendly. Brian was friendlier but also seemed uncomfortable with the tension between Skye, Megan and Miles. As a result, he’d mostly kept his distance.

Miles was distant but professional. There was no chatting in the break room kitchen, and there were no lunch invitations. He was courteous when they crossed paths in the office, and he’d answered her questions about the new tablet project, but that was the extent of their interactions. The strain was beginning to get to her, so she was happy it was the weekend and she could shelve the Miles problem for a couple of days.

When she walked into the front lobby, she saw Hannah standing with Miles, Megan and Brian. Since Miles and Megan both looked stiff and Brian had escaped into his tablet, she suspected the conversation somehow involved her. She appreciated Hannah’s attempts to smooth the friction, but she couldn’t force comradery no matter how much she tried.

Skye saw Ward standing near the front security desk and walked towards him, extremely conscious of the fact that Miles was probably watching. Ward smiled at her, and she smiled back, giving a little wave. He was wearing dark wash jeans with a white button-down shirt and his black leather jacket. She also noticed that his five o’clock shadow was really working for her – and probably for every other woman who saw him. A few of the women leaving the building were looking at him with curious interest.

He waited for her to scan her ID badge and then slipped his arms around her waist, greeting her with a kiss. “Hey. Ready to go?”

She nodded. “We’re meeting Rob and Stacy at Milano’s at six. Then I thought we could walk around downtown, see what bands are playing the local venues. Stacy is excited about having a babysitter and what she calls adult time.”

Ward kissed the top of her head and then released her but kept her hand in his. They were outside when Skye heard someone call her name. Turning, she saw Hannah hurrying towards her with Miles, Megan and Brian following behind more slowly.

Skye stopped and when she tensed up slightly, Ward let go of her hand to put his arm around her.

“Sorry to chase you down, but we were wondering if you’d like to join us for a drink?” Hannah asked hopefully. She looked at Ward. “And I’m Hannah, by the way.”

“Grant,” he said. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Skye’s mentioned you a few times this week.”

“Likewise. So how about it, Skye? I know it’s date night, but you guys could stay for one drink, right?”

Skye smiled at Hannah apologetically. “We actually have plans with our neighbors, Stacy and Rob. We’re having dinner at Milano’s and then we’re going to check out some local music venues.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Well, how about next week?”

She looked at Miles, who was looking at Ward. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans – it was something he did when he felt uncomfortable and defensive. “Yeah, maybe.”

Ward suddenly spoke up, holding a hand out to Brian, who was standing beside Hannah. “I’m Grant Ward, Skye’s fiancé.”

Brian looked a little surprised to suddenly be included in the conversation, but he took Ward’s hand. “Uh, Brian. Brian Maitland. Nice to meet you.” He gestured to Megan and Miles standing to his left. “That’s Megan, and I guess you’ve met Miles?”

“No, but Skye’s mentioned you,” Ward said, smiling at Miles as he shook his hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“She has?” Miles asked uncertainly.

“Good things,” Ward assured him.

Skye was careful not to react, wondering why Ward had forced an introduction when it was clear that Miles hadn’t particularly wanted to talk to either of them. She was still tucked into Ward’s side, and it felt weird to be acting the couple in front of Miles. She knew she’d have to get over that, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

Skye’s phone beeped, and she checked her messages. At Ward’s questioning look, she said, “It’s Stacy. She said the freeway is backed up, so we should probably get going.”

“Stacy?” Miles asked.

“She and her husband Rob live across the street,” Skye told him. “We’re having dinner at Milano’s. Rob’s brother-in-law is the owner and head chef there, and we met them at a neighborhood barbeque last weekend.”

“A neighborhood barbeque – right.”

Miles’ tone bordered on snide, and Skye felt herself tensing up once more. When Ward squeezed her hip she looked up at him. The quiet reassurance in his eyes calmed her, and she relaxed as she hooked her thumb through his belt loop.

Meanwhile, Hannah was glaring at Miles, who was glaring right back at her. Since Hannah was petite, Miles stood a full head taller than her, though she didn’t seem to be intimidated at all by that fact.

Hannah broke her staring contest with Miles to focus on Skye once more. “Do you have any other big plans for the weekend?”

“Not really,” Skye replied quickly, eager to be finished with the exhausting small talk. “House things, buying groceries, game night. Grant likes board games.”

“I’m going to teach Skye to make lasagna,” Ward said. He glanced down at her. “Sunday? You can bring the leftovers to work.”

She was going to kill both Hannah and Ward if they didn’t stop talking. Miles was eyeing her ring finger again – glaring at it, really. “Sunday is perfect.”

Hannah sighed. “Well, you guys have fun and I’ll see you Monday.” It was clear she’d picked up on Skye’s discomfort and was giving her an out, which Skye appreciated.

“Yeah, you have fun too. Maybe we can do drinks or dinner some time,” Skye said.

Skye and Ward were quiet as they walked back to the car.

Once inside the vehicle, Ward turned to Skye. “You’re letting him get to you.”

“Because he _hates_ me,” Skye said, irritated at his implied rebuke. “You didn’t have to force that whole conversation, you know. He wasn’t ready.”

“And that’s why I did it,” he told her. “There was never going to be a perfect time, Skye. The sooner that he sees you’ve moved on and you’re happy, the sooner he’ll let go of whatever fantasy he was hanging onto when you took this job. And the sooner that happens, the better. You want the drama to die down, right?”

“Of course I do. I just don’t want to stomp all over his feelings in the process,” she said, feeling dejected. “He looks at my ring like it’s a symbol of all evil in the world or something.”

“He’s jealous and maybe a little angry. But Hannah’s right – he’ll get over it.” Ward leaned across the console and cupped her jaw. “Hey.”

She raised her eyes to his.

“Are you angry with me?”

She shook her head. “No. I know you have your reasons for doing things and it’s not just random. This week has been exhausting, that’s all. I need to not think about it for a couple of days.”

“Then we’ll forget it. We can go to the beach tomorrow if you want to, or go hiking, or go for a drive.” Ward took her hand again, linking their fingers together. “Whatever you need.”

Skye couldn’t help smiling. “You freak me out a little when you’re this nice. I start wondering if you’re really the same Agent Ward I met last year or a pod person.”

“I guess I could be a pod person,” Ward said as he backed out of the parking spot. “Or maybe I’m an LMD. Did Fitz ever give you that remote?”

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “You were totally eavesdropping on us! What, were you crouched around the corner listening to my whole conversation with Fitz and Simmons? Creeper.”

“I was standing in your doorway, in plain sight,” Ward said dryly. “Like I said before, you should be more aware of your surroundings.”

She laughed. “I guess you got an earful. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think you’re a robot anymore, or a pod person, or an LMD.”

“And who do you think I am?’ he asked, glancing at her.

“I think you’re Grant Ward,” she said softly. _And I think you’re a better human being than you want the world to see_ , she added silently as she looked over at him.

He didn’t ask her to explain her statement, but he squeezed her hand before letting go and concentrating on the road. Skye turned on the radio and leaned back in her seat as she watched the cars and scenery fly past. She was beginning to think she was incredibly lucky it had been Ward who picked her up in L.A.. Maybe they had needed that rocky start in order to get to where they were now.

**A/N: Up next – Skye and Miles have a chance to talk, and Skye and Ward have drinks with her co-workers. I had initially included that here but decided it was too early, so I moved it ahead. After that, we’ll start doing some bigger time jumps to get further into the plot of the story. I’m behind on answering reviews from the last chapter, but I’ll be getting back to you guys soon. I really appreciate the feedback, comments and reviews. Thanks for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

True to his word, Ward spent the weekend helping Skye brush off the stressors of the week. On Friday night they had dinner at Milano’s with Stacy and Rob. Aimee joined them when she stopped by the restaurant, and even her husband left the kitchen when coffee and dessert, a mouthwatering tiramisu, were served.

Skye had settled into their cover much more easily than he’d anticipated, and he was proud of her for that. She didn’t hesitate in her answers, and she appeared relaxed throughout the evening. She and Stacy had hit it off, and Ward found he genuinely liked talking to Rob as well. They shared an interest in sports and reading material, and they all enjoyed the live bands playing in the area that night.

On Saturday morning they drove out to Malibu and spent the morning hiking some of the easier trails in the Santa Monica Mountains. They ate a picnic lunch at Escondido Falls, a two-tiered waterfall that had a decent cascade of water due to recent rainfall. Skye once again took photos of the landscapes as well as some selfies. She also asked fellow hikers they met to snap a few photos of the two of them for their relationship history book, as she’d taken to calling the photo album in their living room.

In the afternoon they went to the public beach in Santa Monica. They’d brought folding beach chairs and a beach umbrella, and Skye listened to music and relaxed while Ward read. Later they locked their valuables in the car and went swimming. Ward had been amused to see that Skye’s version of swimming was more of a dog paddle, and he spent some time helping her improve her skills in the water. He tried to touch her as little as possible because the wet skin revealed by her red bikini tested his resolve more than he liked. And if there was one thing that night on the sofa had proven, it was that his resolve was easily weakened where she was concerned.

They returned home and played board games over pizza and beer that evening. Ward suggested they start with Battleship but quickly regretted his choice when Skye beat him soundly three times in a row. They switched to Forbidden Island, a fast paced game for two to four players, though it was actually good for couples because it involved cooperative decision making. It also allowed Ward to assess Skye’s problem solving skills. While she approached each situation they encountered on the sinking island in a different way than he would have, he could see the merit in most of her suggestions.

Their undercover assignment was more domestic than any other assignment in which Ward had ever participated. He’d done his best to inject as much a sense of normality into their routine as possible because Skye wasn’t an agent; therefore, he reasoned, she needed it more than he did. It was hard to remember that in the beginning, he’d dreaded spending so much time with her. Now it was a routine he found some comfort in, though he refused to attach any particular importance to that realization.

On Sunday they spent a couple of hours in the kitchen making lasagna as Skye told him about the project she was working on at Quinn Worldwide. She might have been a high school dropout, but when it came to hacking and coding, she was in a league of her own. Hacking SHIELD was no easy feat, and he still remembered the chagrined expression on the face of a senior analyst when he’d had to admit he couldn’t break the encryption on her laptop the day Ward brought her in for questioning.

They were now two hours into a game of Risk, and Ward had finally managed to outfox her. She was biting her lip and eyeing her dwindling army and territories with a frown so cute he had a hard time hiding his amusement.

“Ready to call it?” he asked.

“No,” she said, her tone disgruntled. “And you know you have an unfair advantage, right? This is all military strategy, tactics and negotiation, something you have about a decade of experience in.”

“It’s also a good game to help you develop those skills,” he pointed out.

She sighed. “Can we call a timeout and finish tomorrow? This game is giving me a headache.”

Ward checked his watch to see that it was nearly eight o’clock. “It’s getting late anyway. We’ll just leave the board set up.”

Skye stood and stretched, and his eyes were drawn to the strip of skin exposed as her shirt rode up. He averted his gaze as he stood and walked into the living room, turning on the local news and settling into one of the armchairs to read. Skye followed, curling up on the sofa with an envelope of photos she’d printed out at the local Rite-Aid’s one hour photo lab.

He was distracted from his book as she sorted the photos from their night with Stacy and Rob, their hike and picnic at the falls, and their time at the beach. He was sure she’d amassed more photos of him in their few weeks together than he’d had taken in the last ten years, not counting green screen shots done as part of his undercover operations. She took a few from each of their activities and began placing them in the photo album, writing brief notes under each one.

When she placed a few to the side, he asked, “Are you framing those?”

She shook her head. “I’m adding them to my photo wall at work. Most of my co-workers have photos pinned up of family and friends.”

It was smart, and he was glad that she was not only picking up on those kinds of cues but also following up on them in order to better fit into her new role. He returned to reading when she picked up her tablet and began surfing the Internet. Occasionally she laughed, and he’d look over to see her scrolling through various funny memes, gifs, and YouTube videos she searched out on a daily basis.

It was peaceful and exactly the sort of thing that had never been peaceful in the past – not when it involved sharing space with another person. He’d always preferred the solitude that came with working alone, so he wasn’t sure how to process the fact that he didn’t feel that his space had been invaded by sharing it with Skye.

When she went upstairs to get ready for bed, he remained downstairs though he was too lost in his own thoughts to pay attention to his book any longer. Skye was a variable – a puzzle piece he didn’t quite know what to do with even though she fit into his life in a way he hadn’t expected. When he was sure she would be in bed and probably sleeping, he set aside his book, turned off the TV, and headed up the stairs to join her.

***

When Skye pulled into her parking space on Monday morning, she gathered her laptop bag, her purse, a smaller bag containing her breakfast of a bagel with cream cheese and a banana as well as the leftover lasagna, and her travel mug of coffee. She juggled the items precariously as she got out of the SUV and tried to hit the door lock button on her keyless remote.

“Here. Let me help.”

Startled, she turned to see Miles had parked a few cars over and had managed to approach her from behind without her even noticing, something she would not be telling Ward about later given his criticisms of her spatial awareness.

“Thanks.” She handed over her laptop bag and the smaller bag containing the food before locking the doors of the SUV. When she turned back to Miles, he was looking inside the food bag curiously.

“So. Lasagna night leftovers? It looks like a lot,” he commented.

She shrugged. “I thought I would share with Hannah and anyone else who wanted to try it. It’s good.”

Tension was easing into her shoulders as they walked silently into the building and scanned their ID badges before heading into the elevator. It was a silent ride up to their floor, and Skye looked over at Miles to see him staring at his feet.

He followed her to her desk and set her laptop bag and the food on the floor beside her chair. When she glanced over at him after placing her purse and travel mug on the desk, he was staring at the wall of photos she’d put up. Most were of her and Grant, but she hadn’t been able to resist putting up a couple of Fitz and Jemma after clearing it with Ward, who’d said there was no reason anyone would pay attention to the photos. He had, however, nixed her putting up photos of Coulson and Tripp given their field work duties.

Skye pulled out her new photos, and she could feel Miles watching her as she added them to her photo wall. Ward was right – Miles was going to have to get over himself eventually and realize that whatever he’d envisioned happening when they reconnected just wasn’t going to happen.

“So I guess you sold your van?” he asked, still looking at the photos.

She nodded as she picked up her travel mug to take a sip of her coffee. “A few months ago, after Grant returned from overseas. It didn’t make sense to keep it when I knew I’d found a home.”

He looked genuinely confused. “And that’s what Grant Ward is to you? What do you even have in common?”

Skye had thought about what she would tell Miles when this topic inevitably came up. As she had with Stacy, she settled on a version of the truth. “Nothing and… everything, I guess. When we met, it wasn’t exactly instant romance, but it was intense. Despite the obvious attraction he was guarded, and you know me – snark is my middle name in situations like that. We constantly pushed each other’s buttons. But then we found common ground, and we actually managed to build on that. In some ways we have nothing in common but in others? He gets me without pushing too hard. Somehow we just fit.”

“That was always our problem, wasn’t it? I pushed too hard.”

Sighing, she leaned against the edge of the desk. “I don’t think we were ever meant to be – not the way you wanted. I just didn’t understand myself well enough to see it at the time.”

His expression was resigned as he nodded. “Yeah, I’m getting that now. I know I’ve been acting like a jerk, and I’d like to say that will change, but I need some time.”

“I can understand that. I would like for us to be friends again, Miles.”

He smiled at her before turning his attention back to the photos. “You look happy. You’re not the same Skye I knew who was searching for something.”

“I am happy. I know I’m different, but the past year has been the happiest year of my life because I finally know where I belong.” She didn’t have to fake the conviction in her tone because it was the truth. She’d found a family in SHIELD – in Coulson, Jemma, Fitz, and Tripp. Even Ward was slowly being added to that circle as it was becoming more and more difficult to imagine her life not including him in some way.

“I’m glad,” he replied simply, though she didn’t miss the flash of hurt in his eyes at her words. “I’ll see you later.”

When he turned the corner, Skye sat down in her chair and propped her chin on her hands. All things considered that had gone better than expected, and she was finally hopeful that she and Miles might find a way through their messy relationship history to being friends again.

***

The week passed quickly for Skye. By Friday she was feeling more relaxed at work because Miles’ overall attitude towards her had warmed up. When Miles stopped brooding, Megan warmed up as well and Brian became less awkward around her. It was a relief because they were required to work together on certain projects, and she was grateful not to have to endure the tense silence that had previously accompanied their brainstorming sessions.

She knew she probably owed Hannah, at least in part, for improved relations among the group, and she had thanked her by inviting her to lunch that day. The two women visited one of the nearby food trucks and then walked a couple of blocks over to a street that included several trendy clothing boutiques.

Skye eyed an outfit in one of the windows they passed. A black, low cut camisole had been paired with a short amethyst skirt that featured an asymmetrical hemline. It was the perfect date night outfit, especially since she was hoping to convince Ward to go dancing that night.

“I love this shop,” Hannah commented. “They get discards from designer boutiques and sell them for peanuts in comparison to what you’d pay when they’re first released.”

“I’ve never really shopped much, designer or otherwise,” Skye told her. “My closet used to have a shocking amount of plaid until my friend Jemma staged what she called an intervention. I always had other concerns besides what I was wearing, and I never really had the money for non-necessities. I think Grant has more clothes than I do.”

“Well, you have the money now, right? A little frivolous shopping is good for the female soul.” Hannah grabbed her hand and dragged Skye into the boutique.

Five minutes later, Skye emerged from the dressing room and faced the large, full length mirror.

“Wow. That looks amazing on you. It’s the perfect date night outfit if you want your significant other to be completely distracted all night,” she said with a smile. “Here try these shoes.”

Skye took the shoes, a pair of black high heeled sandals that buckled around the ankle. The added height made her legs look longer, and the fitted design of the heavy silk camisole and skirt hugged every curve. She’d worn her black leather jacket with skinny jeans and a scoop neck black blouse to work that day, and she’d intended to wear it out that night as well. But when she slid on her jacket, it looked good with the camisole and skirt, and she knew she was going to buy the outfit.

The original prices gave her sticker shock, but Hannah was correct about the markdowns. The prices were more than fair, and she didn’t care that apparently it was a last season look. Skye knew she had some purple and grey shadows in her makeup bag. On a whim, she had painted her fingernails and toenails a shiny, dark slate shade the night before, and the color coordinated with the new outfit.

Armed with her new purchases, they began walking back to Quinn Worldwide.

“I talked to Miles earlier, and he doesn’t have a problem with you and Grant joining us for a drink tonight,” Hannah said. “I really wish you would. I know it’s date night, but maybe just an hour?”

Skye bit her lip as she thought about it. “Things have been so much better this week that I’m almost afraid to rock the boat.”

“An hour. One drink,” Hannah coaxed in a pleading tone. “If Miles gets to know Grant and sees that he makes you happy, I really think he’ll warm up to him. And after that you’ll still have plenty of time for dinner and whatever else you planned.”

“Why don’t we pick a place we can have drinks and dinner?” Skye suggested. “I’m always starving by that time anyway.”

“Even better,” Hannah said happily. “How about Mexican? There’s a great restaurant downtown called Mercado. It gets a little loud on Friday nights, but they have a great happy hour menu, and the food is amazing.”

“Sounds good. Grant’s picking me up at five,” Skye told her. “I think he’ll be fine with the change of plan.”

When they got back to the office, Hannah ran the dinner plans by Miles, Megan and Brian before calling to make a reservation. Skye texted Ward to make sure he had no objections; as she’d expected he didn’t mind having dinner with her co-workers. She suspected he would use it as an opportunity to size them all up, Miles in particular.

When the clock neared five, Skye went to the bathroom to change and freshen up her makeup. The layered necklace she was wearing seemed to detract from the plunging neckline of her camisole, so she removed it and kept only the dangling silver and black onyx earrings Jemma had given her the previous Christmas.

Returning to her desk, she found Hannah waiting for her. She had changed into dress shorts and a gauzy white blouse over a bright blue tank top with thong sandals. Skye was a little overdressed in comparison, but she didn’t care.

They headed down to the lobby at five and Skye found Ward waiting for her as he had been the week before. She felt that familiar tingle of awareness when she saw him; he wore his usual black leather jacket over a black Henley that tucked in just above his belt, jeans and black boots. She’d noticed how monochromatic his wardrobe was. Most of his shirts were white, grey or black, though he did have a few faded blue ones. However, she couldn’t deny the black on black look worked extremely well on him, and the five o’clock shadow just added a hint of danger to his overall appearance.

Skye had hoped for a reaction to her date night outfit, and she certainly got it. He never took his eyes off of her as she crossed the lobby, and the way his gaze swept her from head to toe said he appreciated the view. She scanned her badge and joined him by the guard’s desk.

His hands settled on her hips, and he bent his head to kiss her. “That is not what you were wearing this morning. I’d remember.”

“Lunchtime shopping trip,” she told him, resting her hands on his shoulders. “What do you think?”

“I think I’ll have to keep a close eye on you tonight,” he said with a smile. “Someone might try to steal you. You ready to go?”

She nodded and glanced over at Hannah, who was observing them with interest. “I guess we’ll meet you over there?”

“Okay,” Hannah replied. “I’ll just wait here for Miles, Megan and Brian.”

The drive to Mercado was short, and Ward made use of the valet parking rather than waste time trying to find a parking spot. Inside the restaurant was already starting to fill up. Dim lighting created a pleasing ambiance, and wonderful artwork reflected a Dia de los Muertos theme that added to the mood of the restaurant.

They decided to wait at the bar for the rest of their party before being seated. Skye slid onto a bar stool and turned to face Ward when he remained standing instead of taking the stool beside her. The high stool evened out their height difference, something he took advantage of by wrapping his arms around her waist. Skye glanced around and noticed several women checking him out, and she was getting her fair share of attention as well.

Turning back to Ward, she said, “I hope things don’t get awkward tonight.” He was playing with the ends of her hair, and she shivered in response.

“You said things have been better since you and Miles talked on Monday,” he answered.

“They have,” she admitted. “But facing the visual proof of our relationship might be hard for him to swallow this soon.”

“Well, we can’t stop being a couple when he’s around,” he said, raising his brows. “All that would accomplish is making our relationship seem ambiguous. It won’t help.”

“Yeah I know,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I guess I still feel a little guilty, but I know you’re right.”

“Things will work out, Skye,” he said gently.

She smiled at that. He was always so certain of things, and it had an odd way of reassuring her when she starting worrying. Over his shoulder, she saw Hannah walking through the door with Miles, Megan and Brian following behind her.

“They’re here,” she said, looking up at him. Biting her lip, she gripped his jacket and pulled him in for a kiss. It started as a gentle brushing of lips, and then Ward slid his hand up to the side of her face as he deepened the kiss.

Warmth spread through her body, and she felt slightly dazed when he pulled back. He brushed his lips against her cheek and then her forehead, his hands rubbing up and down her back slowly. When Skye looked up, she saw Miles staring at them from a few feet away, his face impassive. Hannah was beside him; she waved and Skye waved back.

“We should get our table,” Skye said, her voice shaky.

Ward backed up and lifted her from the high stool before taking her hand and leading her over to the hostess stand. Minutes later they were seated at a large rectangular table. Ward had removed his jacket, and the way the sleeves of his shirt ended mid-bicep emphasized his lean, muscular physique. She wondered if he realized how distracting that was for the female population. If she had a hard time not staring, she couldn’t blame the other women similarly affected.

In a move that surprised her, Miles had taken the seat across from her rather than keeping his distance. Megan sat to his right and Brian was seated to Miles’ left and opposite Ward. Skye was between Hannah and Ward. The waitress passed the menus, and she immediately started perusing the happy hour section.

She and Ward decided on the guacamole plate, tamales, and tacos de carnitas before turning to the main menu. They chose the chips and two salsas, fish tacos and empanadas. Ward gave their order to the waitress when she returned, raising a brow when Skye ordered the Mercado Margarita.

“Tequila? You want to go dancing later, don’t you?” Ward asked.

Skye shrugged and smiled at him. “Maybe. You could always let me go alone.”

“Looking like that? Not a chance,” he told her, draping his arm over the back of her chair.

Their drinks, chips and salsa, and the guacamole plate arrived quickly, and she was sure that it was the best guacamole she’d ever eaten. She and Ward shared their plates of food as they arrived – the small plates of tamales and tacos de carnitas arrived first followed by the main entrees of fish tacos and the empanadas.

Skye bit into one of the fish tacos and moaned in delight. “So good. Here,” she said, holding it out to Ward. He took a bite and offered her the empanada he was holding.

Chewing slowly, she nodded. “Also good. Is the food this good in Mexico?”

“Better,” Ward told her. “You pick the weekend, and we’ll go.”

“If it’s better, you’ll probably have to roll me back across the border,” she said with a laugh.

“Or you could join me for a run in the morning,” he said, amused.

“We’ve already established I’m not running girl,” Skye replied firmly.

“If you know Skye, you must know she’s not into exercise of any kind,” Miles said as he sipped his beer.

“That was true,” Ward said as he turned his attention to Miles. “But she joined me in our home gym twice this week, and we hiked part of the Santa Monica Mountains last weekend.”

“The easy parts,” Skye clarified. “It was more fun than I thought it would be, and the views are incredible. And maybe I’m not into running, but I kind of liked learning to punch things this week. Grant’s teaching me some basic self-defense.” She threw a mock punch at Hannah, who laughed.

Miles’ expression was tight as he locked eyes with Ward. “Well, I stand corrected.”

“I love going up into the mountains,” Hannah said. “I can tell you some of my favorite easy hikes. You can always work your way up to the more difficult ones. Oh, and you have to take a drive along the coast, too.”

“That would be a nice ride on my bike,” Ward said to Skye.

Skye was too full for dessert after their meal, but she ordered another of the Mercado Margaritas. They had a kick, and she’d felt the first one right away. Ward was nursing his second Corona as he chatted easily with Brian.

When Skye went to the restroom, she had to sidestep a few admirers near the bar on her way back to their table. Her engagement ring usually came in handy for those situations; she flashed it and most guys backed off. She sat down beside Ward, and he shook his head in amusement.

“Can’t take you anywhere,” he said, placing his arm across the back of her chair again as he smiled at her.

“Yeah, that’s funny coming from the guy who has his very own neighborhood stalker,” she replied, raising a brow.

“I wouldn’t call Ava a stalker. Persistent, maybe.”

“Uh huh. That’s why you’re changing your run times from morning to morning,” she laughed, sipping the last of her margarita. “I gotta say I love these margaritas.”

“If you really want to go dancing, there’s a great salsa club nearby,” Megan said. “They have excellent margaritas, and they usually have a live band on Friday nights.”

“Ooh, salsa dancing. I have no idea how to salsa,” Skye said, looking at Ward. “You?’

He shook his head. “No, but if you really want to go, we can check it out.”

Ward settled the bill while Skye got directions to the club from Megan. It was within walking distance, so they left the SUV parked at the restaurant and walked over.

“That went okay. Mostly.” Skye leaned into Ward as they waited to cross the street.

“I don’t think Miles is my biggest fan,” he commented. “But he definitely believes in our relationship now.”

They found the club easily with Megan’s directions and spent the next couple of hours attempting to salsa. They weren’t particularly good at it, but Skye enjoyed being close to Ward and he was being a good sport about it. Salsa dancing was definitely a contact activity, one that fueled the simmering attraction between them. She was still surprised when he loosened up. It was one of the reasons she loved their date nights so much. By ten she was yawning, and she followed Ward sleepily back to the restaurant.

***

Ward pulled into the driveway and waited for the garage door to open before parking inside and turning off the engine. Skye was asleep in the passenger seat. He’d noticed that she could fall asleep almost anywhere if she was tired enough.

He got out and walked around to the passenger side, opening the door and reaching in to remove her seatbelt. “Hey Skye? Time to wake up.”

She opened her eyes and smiled sleepily. “Okay.”

He couldn’t help smiling as he helped her out of the car, steadying her when she started leaning back too far. He put his arm around her and led her up the steps, pausing to unlock the kitchen door. He reset the alarm and when he turned around, Skye was removing her leather jacket. The thin spaghetti straps and plunging neckline of her silk camisole revealed a tantalizing amount of skin, and he swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat. He watched as she took two bottles of water from the fridge and handed one to him.

“Thanks for taking me dancing,” she said, sipping her water. “I know it’s not your favorite thing.”

Ward shrugged. “But you like it. I don’t mind, really.” The merits of being able to hold her close outweighed his general dislike of club environments. Salsa dancing turned out to be more intimate than he’d anticipated, but they’d both enjoyed it. They’d become comfortable in each other’s physical space, so much so that it was hard to believe they’d only begun this assignment a month ago.

When she turned to go upstairs, he gave in to temptation. Grasping her hand, he put the water bottles on the counter, turned her around and kissed her. She responded immediately, arching into him as she wound her arms around his neck. He coaxed her mouth open, sweeping his tongue inside to taste her. She was salty and sweet; he pressed her back against the island and slid his hands into her hair to cradle her head in his palms as he slanted his lips across hers again and again.

Ward finally pulled back, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment as he made an effort to calm down. If he didn’t stop now he was afraid he wouldn’t stop at all, and he didn’t think Skye would put a halt to things either. He released her and watched as she took her water and disappeared up the stairs. By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t discussed their attraction since that morning two weeks ago, but he wasn’t sure how much longer they were going to be able to maneuver around it.

He stayed downstairs for a while, finishing his water and checking all the locks before going up to the bedroom. Skye was already in the bed, so he left the light off as he grabbed a clean pair of boxer shorts and walked into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and changed, tossing his clothes into the hamper.

Skye stirred when he got into bed. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and she suddenly rolled over towards him.

Snuggling into him and draping her arm across his waist, she asked sleepily, “Is this okay?”

Ward released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He hesitated for only a moment and then he wrapped his arm around her. “Shh. Go to sleep.”

She was asleep minutes later, but he was distracted – by the gentle rise and fall of her chest against his side, the soft sound of her breathing, and the weight of her arm across his waist.

_Put it in a box._

He had a feeling he was going to need more boxes for the woman sleeping so peacefully beside him.

***

The next six weeks passed more quickly than Skye could have imagined, a blur of work and a form of domestic bliss she was fast coming to crave. She and Ward settled into a routine during the week. They cooked together, had established game nights, and she’d begun working out with him in the gym at least three nights a week. She learned techniques for kicking and punching and discovered that going a round with the bag was a great stress reliever.

They spent weekends doing different activities; they went to the beach or walked the hiking trails, and they took Ward’s motorcycle for long drives up the coast. Skye had never ridden a motorcycle before, but she loved the way she was able to lean into him and enjoy the ride.

As promised, Ward took her to Mexico one weekend. They spent two nights in Tijuana, and she was giddy with the excitement of being in a foreign country for the first time. She dragged Ward to every kitschy tourist trap market she could find, ignoring him when he laughed at her. Before they left she bought a small, colorful Dia de los Muertos doll that reminded her of the artwork at Mercado.

This weekend they had hosted their first barbecue, inviting Stacy and Rob and the Milanos. It was Skye’s first experience with hosting anything, much less playing hostess in her own home, and she’d taken pains to make sure it went off as planned. The Saturday afternoon barbecue stretched into the evening hours, assuring her it was a success.

The bubble burst on Sunday evening. They had finished dinner, and Skye was surfing the Internet while Ward watched the news. She was only half listening until she heard a familiar name. The news anchor was interviewing a Senator Christian Ward of Massachusetts, who was in California with his family for a political convention. She could practically feel the tension radiating off of Ward, though his face remained expressionless as he listened to the news clip.

Skye set her tablet aside. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, turning off the news and getting up.

Skye watched him walk into the kitchen, and moments later she heard the door leading to the garage open and shut. Grabbing her tablet, she searched out the Ward family of Massachusetts, confirming what she’d suspected. Senator Christian Ward was Grant’s older brother.

He never talked about his family, and Skye had enough respect for his privacy not to push. He’d mentioned attending military school at sixteen, and she knew he wasn’t close to his family, but she’d had no idea that he was descended from political royalty. As far as she could tell, the Wards were on the same level as the Kennedys and were well respected in their home state. There was even some speculation that the senator would make a run for president in a few years.

Skye gave Ward his space but when he hadn’t returned an hour later, she went up to the gym to find him pounding the punching bag mercilessly. She hesitated in the doorway before approaching him cautiously. “I brought you some water.”

He paused but didn’t look at her. “Thanks.”

She placed the water on the weight bench. He was ignoring her now, and she bit her lip uncertainly. “You’re not fine, Grant. Do you want to talk about it?”

He landed a vicious punch before stilling the bag and looking at her. “Why? Because we’re engaged? Except we’re not, Skye, and when I say I don’t want to talk about it, I mean it.”

His words landed like a slap, and she drew back. Without another word she left the gym and went back to the house, blinking furiously to keep the tears at bay. But once she was inside, she felt trapped. There was really nowhere to go that was her own, no place she could hide, and she couldn’t bear the thought of lying in bed waiting for him to come in.

Then it hit her. She grabbed her phone and, on impulse, the little Dia de los Muertos doll she’d placed on the end table, and she walked out the door.

***

Ward hated himself the instant he snapped at Skye, and the stricken look on her face stayed with him as he worked out his aggression on the punching bag. Disgusted with himself, he sat on the weight bench and downed the bottle of water. Skye had only been trying to help, and he knew that, but he also knew he couldn’t talk about his family without shining a light on memories he’d worked hard to lock tightly away.

It was nearly ten when he left the gym and went back to the house. He turned off the downstairs lights and walked up the stairs to the bedroom, expecting to find Skye in the bathroom or already in bed. But the bathroom was empty, and so was their bed.

Frowning, he checked the other rooms upstairs before walking back down the living room. A few minutes later he was sure she wasn’t anywhere in the house and he was starting to worry. He checked the patio and even though the yard was dark, he checked the tire swing as well.

Ward was walking through the garage when he saw the small light coming from inside the SUV. He opened the driver’s side door and got in, relieved to find her in the backseat. She was playing with the Dia de los Muertos doll she had brought back from Tijuana; she kept her eyes on the doll and refused to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sighing heavily. “I was out of line.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed. Obviously it’s not my business.”

Ward watched her for a minute. “You’re not planning to sleep in the car, are you?” He had a feeling that was actually her plan when she came out here, a learned behavior from her time spent living in her van, or a defense mechanism. Either way, she was using it as a physical barrier, and it bothered him.

She didn’t answer him, confirming he was right. “I’m sure you figured out already that the senator is my older brother.”

Her fingers stilled on the doll, and she nodded. “I know.”

“The Wards may look good on paper, but that’s not the reality,” he finally continued. “Seeing him brought back some memories, and I took that anger out on you. And I’m sorry about that because you didn’t deserve it. It’s just not something I talk about.”

She nodded. “Got it. The Wards are off limits.”

Ward sat quietly as she went back to playing with the doll. “Skye, you can’t sleep out here. You have work tomorrow. If you want your space, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“You can go to bed,” she said, still not looking at him. “I just want to stay here for a little while.”

He left the garage light on when he went back inside. By the time he showered and got in the bed, it was ten-thirty and Skye still hadn’t come inside. Ward lay on his back, alternating between watching the clock and listening for her to come inside. A painful thirty minutes later he heard the kitchen door open and close, and the faint sounds of the alarm being reset.

Skye didn’t speak when she entered the bedroom, taking her pajamas from the dresser drawer and going into the bathroom. He heard the shower running, and then the quiet sounds of her moving around the room. When the bathroom door opened, the scent of her shower gel and lotion drifted out. Then she got in the bed. He waited for her to slide over to him but for the first time in weeks, she stayed on her side of the bed with her back to him.

***

Skye was wiped out on Monday after her tense night with Ward. She’d gotten very little work done that day, alternating between staring blearily at her screen and trips to the coffee pot in the break room. Even Hannah commented on it, asking her if she was okay.

“I’m fine. I just couldn’t sleep last night,” Skye said.

Frowning, Hannah asked, “Did you and Grant have a fight or something?”

“Or something,” Skye told her. “It wasn’t a fight exactly.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her expression sympathetic. “Is there anything I can do?”

Skye glanced at the time. “Stop the clock?” It was four-thirty and for the first time since starting at Quinn Worldwide, she actually dreaded leaving the office.

“Avoidance isn’t a solution, you know,” Hannah pointed out. “But if it’ll help, we could stay a little late, order dinner in, and have a brainstorming session about the tablet project.”

Skye latched onto the suggestion gratefully. “Thanks.”

She knew that Hannah was right and avoiding Ward was just delaying the inevitable, but her feelings were hurt. She felt raw and vulnerable, and she needed time to get that under control before facing him again. She didn’t think cooking dinner together and playing board games as they usually did on Monday nights would go over well for either of them that night.

She sent him a text letting him know she was going to be staying a little late to work on the tablet project and that they were ordering dinner in. When he messaged back asking what time she thought she’d be home, she told him at least by seven. She could have stayed later, but she hated to keep Hannah at work when it wasn’t necessary.

Miles, Megan and Brian were on their way out at five when they saw Hannah and Skye working on the project together. They joined the discussion, and soon the ideas were flying fast and furious. Wally commented on them working late but left them to it, and the building had mostly emptied out by six when their dinner arrived.

Skye’s phone beeped as Hannah began passing out the sandwiches, and she saw a message from Ward.

_Ward: I’m at the store. Got the dish soap and detergent. Do you need anything?_

They’d done the shopping on Friday night in preparation for their barbecue on Saturday, but Skye had later discovered a few things she’d forgotten to put on the shopping list.

_Skye: My deodorant. Coffee creamer._

_Ward: Which flavor do you want?_

_Skye: French vanilla lat_

A sudden noise distracted her, and she paused. Was that a gunshot?

“What was that?” Hannah asked in alarm.

“It sounded like a gun,” Miles said warily.

They heard the elevator doors open, and two people dressed in black tactical gear stepped out. They wore masks and carried guns, and they were definitely not Quinn Worldwide security.

Skye’s fingers flew across the keyboard of her phone as she tapped out her final message.

_Skye: Milk_

She dropped her hands immediately, but her movements had caught the attention of the male. He approached her aggressively and grabbed her wrist. “What did you do?”

Skye swallowed hard. “Nothing.”

The man took her phone and looked at the messages. “Who is Ward?”

“My fiancé,” she answered quietly, looking over at the others. They all stood still as statues, all clearly confused and scared.

“This department should have been empty,” the woman said. “Tie them up. But not her.”

Skye jerked in surprise when she realized the woman was referring to her. “What?”

The woman stepped in front of her. Her eyes were green but lacked any warmth; they were cool and calculating as she considered Skye. “You work here in the Applied Technology department. I might need you.”

When Miles stepped forward in protest, the woman pointed her gun at him. “You can be a dead hero, or you can stay alive. Your choice.”

Skye shook her head at him. “Don’t. I’ll be fine.” And she would as soon as Ward got there. She knew the store he had probably stopped at, and she knew it was only a fifteen minute drive to Quinn Worldwide. She knew he would have understood her message and left immediately. He was on his way.

_Everything will be fine_ , she told herself as the woman pushed her towards the elevator.

**A/N: Evil cliffie! I’d say sorry, but I’m feeling evil lol. I fell asleep editing this, so I’m posting later than I meant to. This ended up being another really long chapter due to fleshing out scenes, but I still wanted to include the time jump here. So, now you guys have a choice. I was going to edit the third part of The Head and the Heart series tomorrow. However, since I ended this on a cliffhanger, I could be persuaded to start editing Ch 11 tomorrow instead. I might be able to get it ready to post before the weekend’s over – I’ve been sick again (flu turned upper respiratory infection) but I’m finally feeling better and have a little more energy for working on my stories. Let me know what you want. I was hopped up on cold meds again while editing this, so also let me know if you see any mistakes or posting errors.**

**Up Next: Action!Ward to the rescue, and Skye and Ward have the emotional fallout of both their fight and the hostage situation to deal with. In other words, good stuff! :-D**


	11. Chapter 11

Ward glanced at his phone again as he stood in the refrigerated section that contained the coffee creamers and other dairy products. He knew Skye had bought the French Vanilla Latte cream before, but he wasn’t sure if she would want the same flavor or a different one this time. It was a small thing, really, and not very important since she could easily pick it up herself that week.

But after the way he’d snapped at her the night before, he was looking for ways to make amends. He’d apologized, but he could tell that he hurt her feelings. Skye was the verbal one in their partnership, and she’d shut down on him – first in the car and later in bed. After weeks of getting used to her invading his side of the bed, of getting used to her warmth and the desire it elicited, he’d awakened this morning to find her clinging to the edge of the mattress, putting as much distance between them as possible. It stung more than he wanted to admit, especially since she barely spoke to him before leaving for work.

It had been a long day made even longer when he received her message that she was staying late to work on the tablet project. He knew she was avoiding him because she hadn’t mentioned any work deadlines coming up, and any other time she’d worked late had been planned ahead of time. He hated to push her to talk before she was ready, but he was also wary of letting it drag out too long.

When his phone beeped again, he checked his messages.

_Skye: Milk_

Every one of his senses went on alert when he read her one word message. It wasn’t their full code, but there was no way Skye would have forgotten the importance attached to that word – not after all the times he’d gone over their contingency plans and how often she’d teased him about it. He left the basket lying on the floor and walked out of the store as quickly as he could without drawing undue attention.

The fifteen minutes it took to get to Quinn Worldwide were excruciating, and he discarded scenario after scenario as he tried to figure out what could have gone wrong. There was no reason why anyone should have suspected her of anything unless she had ignored Coulson’s orders not to snoop until she’d passed her ninety day company probationary period. Skye was impulsive, but Ward didn’t think she would ignore the mission protocols.

He parked his bike down the road and approached the parking deck from the back side of the building, leaping one of the barriers. Starting from the bottom, he scanned the levels. He saw Skye’s SUV, and he recognized the cars belonging to Miles, Megan, Hannah and Brian as well. The parking deck was mostly empty, but there were two dark SUVs parked to the side of the guard’s station on the lowest level – same make and model, both with tinted windows.

Ward made his way to the guard’s station. The man sitting there wasn’t Sam, who was the security guard who usually came on at six. This man wore a Quinn Worldwide security uniform, but Ward was sure he wasn’t part of the security team. He’d looked them all up and didn’t recall this man. He also didn’t have the look of a new hire or a fill-in. He looked more like the mercenaries Ward had crossed paths with over the years, and he began to consider that whatever was going on had nothing to do with Skye. That would make him feel better if he wasn’t afraid she was caught right in the middle of it.

Taking out the guard was tricky. The security room was locked, so he needed the guard to come out. Ward knew from studying blueprints of the company that there was a supply closet near the guard’s station; using common cleaning supplies, he created a small scale chemical explosion. When the guard opened the door, Ward was ready for him.

He found Sam in the back of the room, unconscious. Since he didn’t want him calling the police if he came to, Ward left him tied up and continued towards the lobby. There he found another guard, also not a Quinn Worldwide employee. Something had gone wrong here though, because the real guard had been shot and was bleeding out in a corridor adjacent to the bank of elevators.

After Ward took care of the guard, he knelt beside the wounded man, whose eyes fluttered open. “How many were here?” He made quick work of patching the guard up as he spoke, using towels secured with duct tape to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

“Three,” he rasped out. “I saw three.”

There had to be more than three of them, but Ward nodded. “Okay. This should stop the bleeding but you can’t move. Just stay here until someone comes for you.”

Ward bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs and began clearing the floors one at a time as he made his way to the Applied Technology department. He only encountered one more man; sneaking up behind him, he choked him until he lost consciousness and used some of the zip tie cuffs he’d taken from the guard to secure him. He had collected three guns now but hesitated to use them until he found Skye because he feared the noise would alert the others, and he still didn’t know how many men he was dealing with. Based on the two SUVs, he was guessing it was at least an eight man team, probably no more than ten, and three of them were down now. That left anywhere between five and seven men to deal with, but his priority was getting Skye out first.

When he arrived at Skye’s floor, he immediately saw Miles, Hannah, Megan and Brian. They were seated on the floor near the manager’s office, and their hands and feet had been tied. However, Skye was nowhere to be seen.

The mercenary standing over them never saw him coming. Ward swept his legs out from under him and had him face down on the floor before he could make a sound, quickly secured his hands and feet and then placed a strip of duct tape over his mouth. He glanced over at the stunned faces of Skye’s co-workers.

Pulling a utility knife from his pocket, Ward set about cutting the ties binding them. “Where is Skye?”

Miles answered, rubbing his wrists. “A woman took her. She said she might need her, but I don’t know why or where they were going.”

“How many?” Ward asked curtly.

“We only saw two,” Miles said. “This guy and the woman who took Skye.”

Hannah spoke up suddenly. “But there must be more of them. We heard a gunshot right before the man and woman got off the elevator, and it sounded like it came from downstairs.”

Ward pulled the man up and pushed him into one of the office chairs. He pulled off the balaclava to see he was younger than the others he’d encountered, probably mid to late twenties. He tore off the duct tape in such a way that skin came with it, and the man glared at him.

“How many?’ Ward asked him.

“Go to hell,” the man replied.

He was impetuous; Ward’s instincts told him the man was also less controlled than seasoned soldiers, and he could use that. “I’ve taken out three of you so far – you make four. I’m guessing eight to ten, but my money’s on an eight man team. Seven men, one woman?”

The man didn’t answer, but the small muscle tick below one eye showed Ward he was right. “Okay, so three more men and a woman. Why did they take the woman that was here?” When he didn’t answer, Ward took the utility knife, cut the ties binding his hands and plunged the knife into the top of his right hand, pinning it to the arm of the chair.

The man tried to contain his reaction, but he groaned before gritting his teeth and taking a deep breath through his nose.

Ward never raised his voice as he continued speaking.  “You’re right handed, and if I twist this knife a certain way, you will never use this hand again. Might make it difficult for you to collect a paycheck as a paid mercenary. Now again – why did she take the woman that was here?”

“That stupid bitch used her phone to send a message,” the man ground out. “Probably just wanted to keep an eye on her.”

Ward nodded before applying more pressure to the man’s hand in a way that he knew would trigger a severe pain response in his nervous system, eliciting another low groan. “That stupid bitch is my fiancée, and that message let me know she needed me. Not so stupid. Last time – why take someone from this department?”

“This department was supposed to be empty,” he finally said. “I don’t know why she took her.”

“What is your team after?” Ward asked.

“Something in Applied Sciences,” the man said, his breathing labored. “I swear I don’t know what. That’s above my pay grade.”

Ward pulled the knife out of the man’s hand and knocked him out before securing his hands to the arms of the chair and replacing the duct tape over his mouth. When he looked up, four identical, slightly horrified faces stared back at him.

“He’ll live,” Ward said. “Where is Applied Sciences?”

“I’ll take you,” Miles told him, a determined expression crossing his face.

“What? No,” Megan protested as she stood with Hannah and Brian, who’d wrapped an arm around both women.

“He might need my help getting in,” Miles replied. At Ward’s questioning look, he said, “If they managed to get into Applied Sciences, they might have locked down the lab. I can override that.”

Ward nodded. “You stay behind me and follow my orders without question. Do you understand?” He waited for Miles to nod before turning to the others. “I’ve secured three men downstairs, and one of the security guards was shot. I gave him an emergency patch-up job, but he’ll need medical attention. Wait until Miles tells you to call 911.”

“Why?’ Brian asked, obviously confused at being told not to call the cops.

“I don’t want anyone else barging in here until I have Skye out,” Ward said flatly. “These are mercenaries, and they will not hesitate to kill her. So wait for Miles to call.”

“But there are still four of them,” Brian began, only to be interrupted by Miles.

“You _just_ saw the same thing I did,” Miles told Brian, his expression incredulous as he waved a hand at the unconscious man in the chair. “Just listen to him.”

“Take the stairs,” Ward told the group as they shuffled past, Hannah looking uncertainly at him over her shoulder before they disappeared into the stairwell. Ward turned back to Miles. “Follow me.”

***

Skye stood quietly beside the woman who had taken her from her office earlier. They had gone directly to the Applied Sciences department; unlike most other parts of the company, this department had not been empty. While two men stayed back near the elevator, another man rounded up the scientists who were still working on various projects and herded them into a small group near the entrance. 

“What do you want?” asked one of the men in the group. He was taller than the other men with dark brown hair and eyes, and he appeared to be in his thirties.

“We want the specs for the Deathlok project,” the woman said. She still had a firm grasp on Skye’s arm, making escape impossible. “You can help us with that, Dr. Collins. We know you’re working with Dr. Ryker at Cybertek to develop the technology.”

“When you locked down the lab, it triggered a lockdown of the computers as well,” Dr. Collins explained. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t access the specs now.”

“You may have a Ph.D. in prosthetics and neuroscience, but I also know you have a Masters in computer science,” the woman said evenly. “You have a way around that failsafe. I suggest you use it.”

Dr. Collins glanced at Skye, obviously wondering what she was doing there, but remained silent.

The woman pushed Skye towards the main bank of computers. “Do not try anything. Understood?” She waited for Skye’s nod before turning her attention to the computers. She was clearly skilled with computers, but Skye could see the lines of code moving across the screen and didn’t think the woman would be able to break through the program that had locked down the files.

Skye looked at the wall clock, knowing that Ward was probably already in the building. It had been nearly thirty minutes since she’d sent the message, but she had no idea how many people were part of the tactical team beyond the four on this floor.

After a few minutes, the woman turned back to Dr. Collins. “I want you to bypass the security.”

When he remained silent, the man lifted his gun and fired.

Skye jumped, hands covering her mouth in shock as a woman fell to the floor. A garish red stain spread across the pristine white lab coat she wore, and blood pooled beneath her at an alarming rate.

“We were told no bloodshed,” the woman said to the man, though her tone implied it was more of a reminder than a reprimand. “That’s the second person you’ve shot in the last half hour.”

“We don’t have time for this,” the man replied. “What about her? She’s CS.”

“True.” The woman turned back to Dr. Collins, who was staring in horror at the body of the fallen woman. “Dr. Collins, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but we will get what we came for. I took this woman from the Applied Technology department earlier. She’s young, pretty. She’s got a nice piece of jewelry that tells me she’s getting married and has her whole life in front of her. And she’ll be dead if she can’t get us into that mainframe in the next five minutes.”

Skye turned her face away from the woman’s body as her brain scrambled for a solution to the lines of code she’d seen on the screen. As skilled as she was, she knew there was no way she could break that encryption in five minutes. She’d be dead before Ward had a chance to do anything.

She’d never considered her own mortality before. Even after running away from St. Agnes, after living on the streets and facing the inherent dangers there, she’d always been hopeful about her life and her future. Peripherally, she’d known this assignment also posed dangers, but she’d still never once thought she’d go out like this.

When the woman pushed Skye towards the keyboard and pointed her gun at her head, Dr. Collins stepped forward. “Stop. Let her go and I’ll do it.”

The woman lowered her gun, though she still kept a tight grip on Skye’s arm. “Do it and I’ll let her go.”

Dr. Collins gave Skye a reassuring nod before moving to the mainframe. His fingers flew across the keyboard, and less than a minute later, he was in.

“Pull up the Deathlok files,” the woman told him.

He did as he was told, pulling up files and moving them into a folder he dragged to the desktop. The woman handed him a portable hard drive, and he plugged it in and transferred the files without protest.

The woman opened the file and scanned the folders inside before disconnecting the hard drive and placing it inside her jacket. Turning to Skye, she said, “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Dr. Collins protested. “You said you would let her go if I gave you what you wanted.”

“And I will. But she’s going to be our insurance policy until we’re out of the building,” the woman told him.

Skye tried not to look at the body of the dead woman as they walked towards the lab entrance, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Lifeless eyes stared back at her from a pale face, and she shuddered. Her hands felt cold, and the tension in her body made her feel brittle enough to shatter at the slightest touch.

She thought she was hearing things when she heard his voice but when she looked up, Ward was blocking the elevators, his gun trained steadily on the woman holding Skye. “Let her go.”

The man with the woman swore. Skye felt the woman’s gun press against her temple, and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard. When she opened them again, she met Ward’s eyes. They were hard and focused with none of the light and humor they so often held when looking at her; oddly, it made her feel calmer. She didn’t know how he was going to do it, but she knew he’d figure a way out of this.

“Your eight man team is down to two,” Ward continued, his eyes shifting to the woman. “I don’t care why you’re here or what you’re taking with you as long as it’s not her. I’m not part of Quinn’s security team, so you let her go? You walk out of here. On the other hand, if you hurt her there will not be a place you can hide where I won’t find you.”

“You shoot and she gets a slug in the head,” the man said. There was a thread of tension in his voice, though, and Skye realized he was nervous. “We clear the building, we let her go.”

“No.” The tone of Ward’s voice was hard and firm and, frankly, terrifying. “She’s not taking one more step with you. Let her go now and I let you go. No one’s called the cops yet, but your time is running out.”

The woman suddenly dropped her gun and stepped back from Skye. “Walk.”

Skye never took her eyes off of Ward as she walked slowly towards him, knowing that at least one of the people behind her, maybe both, were ready to shoot her if anything went wrong. When she reached Ward, he reached out and pulled her behind him, though he never dropped his gun. He moved them to the side, giving the two mercenaries a clear path to the elevators and the stairs. They chose the stairs, the sounds of their footsteps slowly receding.

Skye was startled to realize Ward was talking to her. “What?”

“Did they hurt you?” he asked, brows furrowed as he scanned her from head to toe, looking for any noticeable injuries.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Okay. Stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.”

She watched him until he entered the stairwell, aware that the other scientists were now leaving the lab. Some were crying, others were on their mobile phones. Miles was there, too, something that confused her. Had he been there the whole time?

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Miles sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall. “I came with him in case he needed me to get him into the lab.”

Skye slid down the wall next to Miles as her hands started shaking. She wanted Ward to come back, and she wasn’t sure she would feel safe until he did. There was a dead woman a few feet away in that lab, still lying in her own blood. God, there was so much blood.

Suddenly, Miles said, “Jesus Christ, Skye. Your fiancé is fucking scary.”

Something about it struck her as funny, and she laughed. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

“Skye?”

She looked up to see Ward looking at her, a concerned expression on his face.

She didn’t realize her laughter had turned to tears until he knelt down before her and wiped them away with gentle fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked, his voice soft and calm.

She shook her head as she tried to get herself under control. But her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and when she tried to speak, another laugh bubbled out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You’re in shock,” he told her. Pulling her up, he moved to sit on the sofa outside the lab and pulled her into his lap. “Just let it out.”

Skye burrowed into him, curling herself into a ball and burying her face against his shoulder as she let the tears fall. Squeezing her eyes shut, she blocked out the images of wide, lifeless eyes and blood that now seemed tattooed on the backs of her eyelids.

***

Ward held Skye tightly. Her body shuddered but she never made a sound as she cried, and it caused an ache inside him. It felt like she was shaking from the inside out. He’d seen the dead woman in the lab and knew Skye must have watched it happen. He also knew it was probably the first time she’d watched someone die.

More people were milling around now, including company security, the medics and the police. When Hannah appeared in front of him, clearly worried about Skye, he asked her to get a soda from the machine and some crackers. Skye was quiet now, and her breathing was more even, but she was still shaking and her hands were freezing as they gripped the front of his t-shirt. He waved a medic down and got a blanket, wrapping it around her as he drew her closer.

When Hannah brought the soda and crackers, he opened them and said, “You’ll feel better if you get some sugar in your system. You’re coming down off an adrenaline high.”

Skye turned her body so that her back was against his shoulder but didn’t move away from him. He handed over the soda and crackers, watching her sip the drink and nibble at the edges of the crackers without really eating them. She managed to finish half the soda and finally ate two of the crackers before passing them back to Hannah, who had been sitting quietly beside them for the past fifteen minutes.

Ian Quinn arrived, and Ward continued holding Skye as he took note of the police and the questions they were asking. He knew that their names would be part of the report, but he wasn’t very concerned. There was no question that his cover would hold up since it had been in place for years. Skye’s was newer, but she’d added layers to it since receiving her documents from Coulson. Unless the police were suspicious of her, there was no reason for them to look too hard.

It wasn’t long before Quinn approached Ward. “How is she?”

Skye spoke before Ward could answer. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

Quinn nodded. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“Your head of security should be fired,” Ward told him, not bothering to disguise the anger in his voice. “They shouldn’t have been able to get in here like that.”

“I don’t disagree, and that’s being handled. The position is open if you’re interested,” Quinn told him, his gaze assessing. “You probably saved the guard’s life downstairs with that emergency first aid, and a man who can handle himself the way you did tonight is the kind of man I’d like to have working for me.”

“This wasn’t a job interview,” Ward replied evenly. “I let them take what they came for.”

“As you should have,” Quinn said. “I would have done the same thing in your position. Dr. Collins transferred a delayed virus onto the hard drive, so I doubt they’ll get much anyway. Look, just think about it. And Skye? Please take a few days off, get some rest. The company is going to be closed tomorrow anyway while we deal with what happened here.”

“What was her name?” Skye asked softly as she raised her head to look at Quinn.

Quinn cleared his throat. “Holly McEnnis. She was one of Dr. Collins’ interns.” He reached out and placed a hand on Skye’s shoulder. “Please, take a few days off. Don’t come back until you feel ready. And Mr. Ward, think about the job offer.”

When he left, Ward looked down at Skye. “Are you feeling up to talking to the police? They’ll need a statement before we leave.” Miles, Megan, Brian and Hannah had already been led away to give their own statements, and the body had been removed from the lab.

She nodded, and they sat down with a Detective Martinez from the LAPD, as well as an Agent Braswell from the FBI. Skye answered their questions quietly, the blanket still wrapped tightly around her as she leaned against Ward’s side.

“And why were you here, Mr. Ward?” Agent Braswell asked.

“Skye and I were texting when they arrived,” he explained. “I knew something was wrong, and I was nearby.”

“It’s probably a good thing you were,” Agent Braswell commented. “And you were in the Army, correct?”

Ward nodded. “Special Forces group out of Ft. Bragg. I left the service a few months ago when we decided to get married.”

They asked a few more questions, but Ward could see that they weren’t looking at him or Skye as being involved. When they were finished, they walked back downstairs to collect Skye’s things from her desk. Taking her laptop bag from her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and led her outside to the car.

***

Skye was exhausted when they arrived at the house, and her feet shuffled against the wood floors as she walked inside. She stood in the kitchen beside the island and tried to think of what she needed to do before going to bed. Were they supposed to call someone? File a mission report? Should she call Coulson?

“Why don’t you go up and take a bath,” Ward said. “Get warm. I’m going to fix some soup, and I want you to try to eat it when you get out.”

“Don’t we have to do something?” she asked. “Call someone?”

He shook his head. “I’ll take care of it. You don’t need to do anything or worry about anything right now.”

She nodded and left her bag on the kitchen floor. Upstairs she ran the water as hot as she could stand and soaked until it cooled. Then she dressed in yoga pants and a soft, lightweight hoodie and went back downstairs to find Ward stirring soup in the kitchen.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

She nodded again, watching him ladle the soup into a bowl. She ate slowly, unsure if her stomach was going to be able to handle anything. She was feeling calmer now, though, and she was able to finish the soup. She sat quietly as Ward cleaned up. She was so tired, but she was afraid if she went to sleep she would see it again – the woman falling, the blood. _Not the woman_ , she reminded herself. Her name was Holly.

“Skye, if you want to talk about it…”

“I don’t,” she interrupted him.

“Don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not,” he told her.

The irony struck her, and she laughed.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t get to do that – shut me out and then tell me I can’t do the same.”

Ward remained seated as she stood and went upstairs. In the bedroom, she pulled the covers back and got into bed, facing away from the door. After a few minutes she heard Ward come in, and the bed dipped as he slid in next to her. For the first time, he was the one to close the gap as he moved in behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t try to pull away from him. They lay in silence for a few moments before he spoke.

“The Wards of Massachusetts are a real life Grimm fairytale,” he said quietly. “What you see on the TV or in the papers is just the Disney version.”

Skye bit her lip and reached hesitantly for the hand at her waist, linking their fingers together. “Is that why you went to military school? To get away from them?”

“No. That was my parents’ idea, but it turned out to be the best thing for me,” he replied.

She didn’t expect him to open up more than that, and he didn’t. She ran her fingers along his as she gathered her thoughts. “I’ve never seen someone die like that. There was… a lot of blood.”

“I know. I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry I couldn’t get there sooner.” His tone was regretful.

Skye rolled over to face him. “You came as soon as you could. Thank you.”

Ward reached up to brush her hair away from her face. “You don’t have to thank me for that, Skye. I’ll always come if you need me.”

“I’m so tired,” she said softly, “but I’m afraid I’ll see it if I close my eyes.”

He pulled her closer so that her head was resting against his chest, and she snuggled into him.

“I imagine that I’m filing things away in boxes when I can’t sleep,” he told her. “Whatever’s bothering me, it goes into a box. It clears my mind.”

She could picture him doing that quite easily. “For me it’s stars. There used to be these yellow stars on the ceiling above my bunk at St. Agnes. They glowed in the dark, but they were kind of old and faded by the time I moved into that room. But I still loved them, you know? I’d memorize the patterns and count them as I fell asleep.”

“So count the stars,” he said quietly. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

Skye gradually relaxed and allowed his warmth to chase away the chill remaining from the events of that night as she counted the stars pictured in her mind until she fell asleep.

**A/N: Okay, so I cut this off a little sooner than I originally intended to so I could get it posted today. We still have quite a few emotional beats and changes coming up, and they still have some things to deal with as their situation grows ever more complicated. Hope you enjoyed the update! Next will be part 3 of The Head and Heart series – ‘The only exception (is where the lines overlap)’ and I’ll post as soon as it’s ready. I didn’t quite finish replying to everyone’s reviews/comments yet so I’ll also catch up with that. Thanks a lot for the story love, guys. I appreciate it a lot, and I hope you continue to enjoy the ride! (P.S. If any of you read the comics, there were a couple of Easter eggs in this chapter.)**

**Up Next: Any guesses about who the woman was with the mercenary group? Skye and Ward get a visit from a few of Skye’s co-workers, a phone call from FitzSimmons, Tripp and Coulson, and they continue trying to rebuild the shaky bond they’ve forged as they enter new emotional territory. More coming soon!**


	12. Chapter 12

 

A buzzing vibration against his hip woke him, and Ward opened his eyes, instantly alert to his surroundings. The bedroom was still, the silence broken only by the whirring of the air conditioner and the sound of Skye’s quiet breathing. She was still in his arms, her head nestled into his shoulder, and his arms tightened around her involuntarily as the events of the night played back in his mind.

He was not the type for what ifs. They served no purpose; there was only what is and what had been. However, the what ifs of the hostage situation had been circling in his mind for hours. What if he and Skye hadn’t been texting when the mercenaries had arrived? What if Skye hadn’t been fast enough to alert him to the problem? What if the man had shot her instead of the scientist?

Skye shouldn’t have been there, and it was his fault she was. He’d made a mistake with her that could have resulted in her death, a thought that sent a distinct chill through his veins that had nothing to do with the mission. He’d been so careful in the handling of their relationship that he somehow failed to realize just how far under his skin she’d managed to get.

If she were any other agent, Ward felt sure he wouldn’t have snapped the way he had the night before. He would have locked it down and moved on as he had so many times over the years. The difference was that it had been Skye doing the prodding, and she already made him feel vulnerable in ways he was not equipped to deal with. Worse, he had no idea how to pull back, or if that was even an option at this point.

His phone buzzed again, and Skye shifted against him restlessly. He ran a hand down her hair in a calming gesture, waiting for her to settle before reaching for the phone in his pocket. His eyes narrowed when he saw the message:

_“We need to talk.”_

Ward tapped out a return message and slid his phone back in his pocket. He turned his gaze back to Skye. The light from the hallway was just enough to reveal her features in the shadowy bedroom, and he could see that her brow was furrowed. She was resting but still restless, and he wondered if bad dreams were the culprit. After everything she’d been through, he’d be surprised if she didn’t have nightmares for a while.

He stroked her hair again, and she relaxed a couple of minutes later. Pressing a kiss against her forehead, he eased away from her and got up. Downstairs the lights were still on. Ward started a pot of coffee before turning on his laptop to check the secure SHIELD server. Coulson had replied to his earlier message. Though the response was brief, Grant could sense the concern from the older man. It would probably do all of them some good if he could set up a secure video call.

There was a quiet knock at the kitchen door, and he got up to let Natasha in. He didn’t speak as he crossed to the cabinet, removed two cups and poured the coffee. She accepted the cup he passed her and they moved to the sofa in the living room.

“Would you like to tell me what the hell happened tonight?” Ward finally asked.

Natasha sipped her coffee and then placed the cup on the coffee table. “The reason I came to L.A. was to infiltrate a mercenary group run by Brent Sullivan. His group hit Stark Industries not long ago. We needed to find out what they were planning to do with the technology they stole.”

“Brent Sullivan,” Ward said. “You’ve worked with him before. Bulgaria.”

“Yes, but he is not the man he used to be,” she replied. “He never used to be so damn unstable, for one thing. And for the record, I had no idea we were going into Quinn’s company tonight until we were already in the van. He’s being secretive, and he’s taking his orders from a third party, which is not his usual style.”

He listened as she explained what she knew.

“So Sullivan’s brother volunteered for a project called Deathlok – some kind of super soldier experiment going on at CyberTek, a company that occasionally partners with Quinn,” Ward summarized. “And now this experimental tech is causing life-threatening complications, which probably explains Sullivan going off book.”

Natasha nodded. “Harlan Ryker and Dr. Collins used to be friends, but it seems they’ve had a falling out over the use of the tech that Collins has been designing. Sullivan said Quinn claimed to be unaware of Ryker’s true agenda.”

“Do you believe him?”

“My gut says no, but we don’t really have enough intel to make a judgment at this point,” she replied frankly. “There’s a woman named Raina who acts as a liaison between Quinn and Ryker. She heads up a few projects for Quinn, but we don’t have anything on her. It’s possible that this was all a plan between Ryker and Sullivan to get the specs that Collins has been withholding. It’s also possible that Raina knew what was going to happen since they had some inside knowledge on who would be working.”

“I’ll ask Skye tomorrow if she knows anything about her,” he said. “She’s been following Quinn’s trail for over a year now.”

“Look, I’m sorry she got caught up in the middle of this,” Natasha said, her tone regretful. “Sullivan’s intel said no one was working late. All I could do was check Skye’s floor and keep her with me after I found her.”

“Why were you trying to take her out of the building?”

“Because when I saw her message, I knew you were coming. Honestly, my money was on you shooting first and asking questions later. But you know me, Ward. I would have blown the mission before letting her get hurt. I know she’s not field trained.”

“Instead she watched someone die right in front of her,” he said grimly. “Not even you can control everything, Natasha.” He knew that she had done the best she could, given the circumstances, but he was still upset that Skye had been dragged into it.

“I’d like to talk to her,” Natasha said.

“She’s asleep,” he told her. “I’m not waking her up so she can relive all of this again tonight.”

“I’m awake.”

Ward looked up to see Skye standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at them uncertainly. He stood up and met her at the bottom of the stairs, and a warm feeling spread through him when she reached for his hand and linked their fingers together.

Natasha rose as they approached.

Ward nodded to the other woman and said, “Skye, this is Natasha Romanoff.”

Skye’s eyes widened as she recognized the name. But when Natasha stepped forward, hand out, Skye suddenly drew back. “You’re the…” her voice trailed off uncertainly.

Ward realized she recognized Natasha from earlier that night. He tightened his fingers around hers in a silent show of support.

Natasha dropped her hand. “Yes, I was there. But it’s not what you think, Skye.”

To her credit, Skye didn’t immediately jump to conclusions or go on the attack, but it was clear she was suspicious of the other woman. Ward led her over to the sofa and sat closely beside her as Natasha explained what she’d already told him.

When she was finished, Skye was quiet, her thumb drawing circles against his hand in an absentminded fashion. Finally, she said, “I thought you were going to shoot me. I actually thought, for a minute there, that I was going to die.”

Ward swallowed down the anger that flared briefly with her words.

Natasha sighed. “I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a clean mission, but Sullivan was trigger happy and I knew it. I figured if I was being the aggressor he’d stand down.”

“Instead he shot someone else,” Skye said, a thread of anger in her voice. “Her name was Holly, and she just… she was murdered, right in front of you.”

The other woman gave a resigned nod. “I know. It’s something I’ll have to come to terms with. You were my priority, but believe me when I say that I have enough blood in my ledger. If I had realized what he was going to do, I would have tried to stop him.”

Skye looked over at Ward, and he squeezed her hand again before letting go and standing up. “It’s late. I’ll walk you out.”

Natasha recognized it for the dismissal it was, and she stood and followed him through to the kitchen door that led out to the garage.

Outside, she turned to him. “Things seem to have changed between the two of you. Quite a lot, actually.”

Ward crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “What we are is our business.”

She raised a brow at his clear deflection. “Just be careful not to lose sight of the mission. From what I saw earlier, it was personal for you.”

“Skye is my mission, so I don’t really see a conflict of interest here,” he replied evenly.

“Your call. I’ll monitor Sullivan and the team closely and set a meet if I think there’s anything you need to know.”

“And the odds this blows back on us?” he asked shortly. “I took out six of his team members, and you only managed to extract two on your way out. That leaves four in custody. If I were him? I’d be a little unhappy about that.”

Natasha sighed. “He’s deep in the dirt on this one, the kind I used to dig into on a regular basis. Worse, he’s completely unpredictable now.  I don’t think he’ll come sniffing around you or Skye, but I also didn’t think he’d shoot anyone on a clean mission.”

“Percentage?”

She shrugged. “Maybe thirty. He has bigger problems at the moment. But I do have his ear now, so I’ll be able to tip you off if that becomes a legit threat.”

“Quinn offered me a job – head of security,” Ward told her. “He should know it won’t be so easy to get in a second time.”

Her lips quirked at that. “Understood.” Nodding to the house, she said, “Take care of her. I really am sorry it went down like this.”

Ward waited for her to leave through the side door before going back inside and resetting the alarm.

***

Skye turned off the lights in the living room and curled into a corner of the sofa while she waited for Ward to return. It was really hard for her to reconcile the woman she thought was going to kill her with the Black Widow. Skye had heard all the stories about her. Romanoff was part of the Avengers Initiative, a hero, and someone Skye greatly admired. And tonight she’d been part of a mission that resulted in the death of an innocent bystander.

It forced her to put this job into perspective. She knew that SHIELD were the good guys, but she supposed nothing was black and white in the world of espionage. There were probably good people who died on both sides. After all, spies from every country were fighting for something they believed in.

The one constant in her world at the moment was Grant Ward. He was complicated; an enigmatic agent whom she’d once believed was more robot than man, something she now knew to be far from the truth. He felt things – felt them deeply if his blowup the night before was any indication. As much as she wanted to know him, she realized now that she shouldn’t have pushed. Just as her days in the orphanage and a few of her foster homes were things she didn’t like to talk about, he clearly had personal demons riding him from his own childhood.

He’d been so patient with her in every aspect of this mission, so the least she could do was cut him some slack. He’d opened up a little and for now, that was enough. At the very least, it was a place from which to build.

Skye heard him come back into the house and reset the alarm before walking through to the living room.

He paused when he saw her sitting in the dark. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and held out her hand. He walked forward and sat beside her again, allowing her to take his hand again. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

Holding his hand in both of hers, she answered, “I’m just thinking.”

His hands were big and strong, and she traced the ridges of his palm before sliding her fingers along his. Then she moved carefully into his lap, straddling him. A sharp indrawn breath was his only reaction as she settled against him and took both of his hands in hers.

“Your hands are so strong,” she murmured, threading their fingers together again as she looked up at him. “I knew I was safe as soon as I saw you tonight.”

His fingers tightened around hers when his eyes met hers. “These hands have been weak before, Skye. I haven’t always been strong enough to protect the people I cared about. They were a weakness, just like you.”

“Why am I a weakness?” she asked curiously. She’d thought he was going to move her, but he was allowing this intimacy, and she pressed her advantage by raising one hand to his face. She stroked her fingers across his brow, ran her fingers through his soft hair, and then rested her fingers gently against his jaw, enjoying the roughness of the stubble there.

“There are times when…” he paused, as if gathering his thoughts. “You make me want things that aren’t possible with this life. It’s a weakness because it could compromise my judgment. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She supposed he had a point. She knew enough about how specialists operated to know that having a relationship beyond this mission would be at best difficult, and at worst damn near impossible. With anyone else, that knowledge would be enough to send her running because emotional complications weren’t exactly her forte.

“Would it compromise your judgment with the mission?” she asked.

He remained silent for a moment as he thought about her question. Finally he admitted, “I don’t know. Your mission is Quinn, and mine is you – keeping you safe. Maybe not.”

“Then why don’t you let me worry about getting hurt,” she told him. “I know it’s a complicated situation, but I still want this. I want you, Grant, because I feel a connection to you, and I don’t believe human connections are a weakness. I believe they can be your strength.”

She didn’t give him a chance to come up with more arguments. Instead she kissed him, a gentle brushing of lips that instantly stoked the attraction between them. She felt him wrap his arms around her, and one of his hands twisted in her hair as he pulled her forward. The thin layers of her underwear and yoga pants were scant barriers, and she tilted her hips forward as she felt him beginning to harden beneath her.

When she tugged at his t-shirt, Ward pulled it over his head and tossed it aside before reaching for her hoodie. She raised her arms and allowed him to pull it up. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and she shivered in the cool air. But when his hands rose to cup her breasts, she was shivering for different reasons altogether.

Skye ran her hands over his chest, tracing the muscles there and along his arms as he caressed the curves of her breasts. His head lowered suddenly, and she couldn’t stifle the moan as his lips found the crest of one breast. He licked and sucked, first one peak and then the other, and she shifted her hips as she began to grind down against him. Each pull of his lips sent a shockwave straight to her core, and suddenly she was not at all interested in taking things slowly.

Shifting off of his lap, her fingers went straight for his belt. Ward kicked his shoes off and helped her slide his jeans and briefs down. Skye pulled them off and then straightened up, shimmying out of her underwear and yoga pants in one smooth move that seemed to hold his rapt attention. She smiled at him as she placed one knee on each side of his hips and kissed him.

Ward’s hands slid down her back and over her hips. When one hand moved between her thighs, she pulled her lips away from his and pressed her face against the side of his neck. One probing finger entered her and she bit her lip as she rocked against his hand. She was really wet, which was really no surprise considering the months of foreplay they’d been engaged in.

Skye licked his neck and bit down slightly, pleased with his answering grunt. “Now, okay?”

He didn’t argue. Ward shifted beneath her, one hand on her hip as he guided himself inside her. He went slowly, penetrating her with a series of steady rocking movements that succeeded in making her forget the pinching sensation and pressure she felt. When he was seated fully inside her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as she began moving against him. His hands were everywhere – in her hair, on her shoulders, breasts and thighs before they settled on her hips. He pulled her forward slightly, and she gasped as this new position allowed his pelvic bone to rub against her with each thrust.

Skye leaned her forehead against his as she concentrated on the rhythm he was setting. God she was so close, the heat and tension coiling and then rising in her belly. When she came, he helped her continue the rocking movements, guiding her through her orgasm. She’d barely come down from her high before he was moving them, laying her back against the cushions and sliding his body on top of hers.

This time there was no pinching sensation, no pressure as he slid home, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he began to thrust hard and fast. Peripherally she was aware that he was on the edge, but she was distracted by the steady pressure building in her belly again. His release triggered her second orgasm, and she hugged him tightly to her as they rode the aftershocks together.

Ward’s head was against her neck, and Skye traced lazy circles against his back as she enjoyed the hazy afterglow of the moment. When he raised his head to look at her, she smiled up at him. “Hi.”

His lips quirked in amusement, and he raised a hand to brush her hair back. “Hi.” He braced his arms beside her head and kissed her gently before pulling away to lie on his side next to her. One hand settled on her ribs, stroking gently. “I think we forgot something.”

“Condoms?” she guessed, grimacing slightly as she registered the sticky wetness between her thighs. At his nod, she added, “Well, the SHIELD docs put me through one hell of a physical before they approved me to go into the field, and my birth control? I’m pretty sure it was designed by NASA.” She’d never even heard of the type before, but it was apparently standard for all female field agents.

Ward laughed at that.

“And hey, at least we kept it out of the bedroom, right? We’re not crossing all the lines.” She meant it as a joke, but Ward raised his head and looked down at her, a serious expression on his face.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly, propping himself on an elbow and cupping her cheek.

“What?” she asked. She turned her face into his palm, surprised by the affectionate gesture.

He stared at her, stroking her cheek. “Not everything is a lie with us.”

Ironically, that was the thing that was suddenly scaring her. She had so little experience with feelings like this, and their situation was complicated and messy. “We’re blurring the lines, aren’t we?”

Ward nodded, his fingers still tracing the delicate bones of her cheek. “I think we’ve been blurring the lines since the day we met. FYI, I usually handle interrogations a hell of a lot better than I handled yours.”

“Hmm, I’m not surprised,” she commented. “I noticed you staring at my boobs more than once.” Once she’d realized he wasn’t going to hurt her, she’d begun paying attention to his body language. It hadn’t taken her that long to realize he was attracted to her on some level, and she’d used that against him a few times in the hours he’d questioned her.

They lay quietly for a while longer before Skye shifted in discomfort. “Okay, this is super sweet, but no condoms means I need to uh – take care of things.”

Ward stood up and she took his hand, allowing him to lead her up the stairs. She grabbed a tank top and a clean pair of underwear before heading into the bathroom to wash up. When she emerged, she was alone in the bedroom. She settled on the bed and began brushing her hair.

Skye heard Ward coming up the stairs, and she wasn’t surprised when he took the brush from her and began running it through her long strands. A few minutes later he laid the brush on the bed and began combing his fingers through her hair as he massaged her scalp and the back of her neck.

She hummed in approval, her muscles in a jelly-like state by the time he stopped and guided her head down on the pillow. She cracked her eyes open when he got up. “Where are you going?”

“Just turning off the lights,” he answered.

He was back moments later, and Skye wasted no time burrowing into him. Then she noticed the time on the bedside clock and groaned. “God, it’s almost six.”

“Well, you don’t have to work,” he said, rubbing his hand along her back. “Just sleep – don’t worry about the time.”

“I definitely don’t want to think about work,” she said with a yawn. “Are you going to take the job Quinn offered?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I’m not letting you go back in there alone – not if someone on the inside helped arrange what happened.”

“Quinn seemed awfully upset about it,” she pointed out. “Maybe it wasn’t him.” She knew it was naïve to make assumptions, but she hated to think that anyone inside was partially responsible for what had happened to Holly.

“Maybe,” he replied.

His hand slid under the hem of her tank top, stroking slowly, and she wiggled against him. “That feels good.” Actually, everything about him and the way he touched her felt good – better than anything she’d ever felt before.

_That should probably bother me more_ , she thought sleepily before allowing the motion to lull her to sleep.

Ward could tell the moment she fell asleep. Her breathing slowed and evened out, and she was completely relaxed against him. Still, he continued rubbing her back gently, enjoying the smooth feel of her skin beneath his fingers as he thought about what happened earlier.

There was no coming back from it. That much, at least, he knew. He didn’t even want to back away from the physical relationship they’d begun that night. Frankly, he was tired – tired of resisting her, and tired of trying to shove everything she made him feel back into the box every night.

He could process the physical relationship and appropriately compartmentalize it if necessary, but their emotional connection was much harder to categorize. He didn’t think he’d ever felt fear like he’d felt earlier upon seeing Skye with a gun to her head. It had taken him seconds longer than it should have for him to realize it was Natasha holding her. And even then, when he knew she wasn’t in immediate danger from the person holding her, he hadn’t been able to shake the fear and anger warring within him.

A year and a half ago, they’d been wary opponents in an interrogation room, their standoff charged with sexual awareness and suspicion. Now they were engaged in a different kind of standoff, one with much higher stakes. He wasn’t the only one feeling it. He knew that was why Skye had tried deflecting earlier, and he should have let her. He should have allowed her to use her snarky charm to bring them back to a level they would both be more comfortable with.

But he didn’t, and now they were paddling deep waters neither of them had much experience with. It should probably worry him more than it did, but it was hard to worry about it when she was snuggled into him so sweetly. He’d never been one to snuggle either – in bed or out of it.

Ward finally closed his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to do anything but circle the topic at the moment. And for once, he left his boxes outside the bedroom.

**A/N: Sorry I’ve been so slow with this, guys. I get busy or distracted (or both) and just don’t have the time to write and edit. I’m stopping here  because I’ve been sick off and on this weekend, and this is the part I had previously edited, so I’m fairly sure there aren’t any glaring errors. Let me know if you see anything, including repetitive language (that’s the hardest one to catch sometimes, but it’s the one I find most annoying.) I’ve read through it a couple of times and it seems okay, but I’ll admit my mind is not completely on the task.**

**I’ve finished my screenwriting class, and I’m nearing the end of the semester, so come June I’m off for the whole summer! I have some new fic ideas I’m outlining. One is a shorter fic and would be an Arrow/SHIELD crossover in which Skye and Felicity were childhood friends. When Skye has a falling out with the team, she heads to Starling City to see her friend Felicity. Then all hell breaks loose there, as so often happens in Starling, and Team Bus go after her. It would probably be a modified SHIELD season 1/Arrow season 2-ish AU, five chapters or so. The second fic idea I’m outlining is a modified season 1 – when Skye lands on SHIELD’s radar, Coulson sends Ward in to get close to her and find out what she knows rather than arresting her. So, Skye is his mark in this one, and things get messy, messy, messy lol. Right now I’m going to concentrate on The Head and the Heart series and Under My Skin, with the goal of getting them wrapped up by the beginning of summer. If you have any fic suggestions, please let me know. Hope you enjoyed the update and thanks for reading!**

**Up Next: Ward and Skye deal with an unexpected stream of visitors as word of what happened at Quinn Worldwide starts leaking out, and Ward sets up a special video call for Skye to cheer her up. Meanwhile, they continue to work through the changes in their relationship as they realize they still have a lot to learn about one another.**


	13. Chapter 13

Ward smiled when he peeked into the bedroom to check on Skye. She was sprawled out on her stomach in the middle of their bed; the sheet had pulled away from the end of the mattress at some point and was tangled around her torso and legs. It was clear that without him there to anchor her that she often changed positions while sleeping, just as she’d warned him the first night they shared a bed.

It was nearly one in the afternoon. She was still sleeping soundly, though that didn’t surprise him. While he felt fine on the four hours he’d gotten, he knew that Skye wasn’t used to the stress, both physical and emotional, of life and death situations. It was the first time they’d used the blackout blinds he’d installed a few weeks ago, but he was hoping it would help her get the rest she needed.

Ward quietly closed the door and headed back downstairs. In the kitchen, he sat at the island and continued to monitor the news stories about the incident at Quinn Worldwide. Initial reports had made the late news the night before, while more comprehensive coverage hit the Internet news sites and morning papers. There was no mention of either his name or Skye’s – yet, anyway. Most of the stories focused on the corporate espionage angle and the young intern who had been killed.

He’d been up since shortly after ten, and neighbors had started dropping by around noon. The first was Stacy, and she’d warned him that there would likely be a cavalcade of visitors throughout the afternoon. She was horrified when he gave her the abridged version of events and explained that he wasn’t sure Skye would be up to seeing people, especially if those people would be asking a lot of questions.

Stacy, it turned out, was a good ally to have in gatekeeping. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but the few visitors who had stopped by so far had only done so in order to bring food offerings. Even Ava, who was usually eager to stick around and talk to him as long as he’d allow it, seemed sincere in her well wishes when she dropped off a frittata that she advised him would reheat well.

Since it was a Tuesday, many of their neighbors were working. Ward figured they might have a steadier stream of visitors after five and at the weekend. When the doorbell rang, he expected to see yet another neighbor. Instead, it was a courier with a package from Ian Quinn.

Ward signed for the package and settled back at the kitchen island. It was an official offer of employment, something he’d been expecting to receive given Quinn’s interest in hiring him the previous night. The offer was more than generous since Quinn knew he could make more money in the private security sector. What he was offering was equivalent to offers he’d seen from private military firms.

Of course he was going to take it. If fit their mission parameters, and he’d be better able to keep watch over Skye. He suspected that Quinn was banking on his protective instincts. While all of his actions after the shooting fit his overprotective fiancé cover, he hadn’t needed to dig very deep to support that cover. He’d been genuinely upset – at Natasha, yes, but also at whomever was in charge of security for the company. And he fully intended to clean house when he took the job.

Ward finished reviewing the paperwork and sent a coded message through SHIELD’s secure server to let Coulson know that Quinn had made contact. Then he sent a message to Quinn. He requested details on standard company security protocols and let him know that he wanted time to review it before he made a final decision. Quinn was intelligent enough to read between the lines and guess that Ward’s decision would likely impact whether or not Skye returned as well. He sent the requested information promptly and without protest.

For the next hour he reviewed the security protocols and made notes on what he’d be changing. He also looked over the personnel files of the security guards and the former head of security. Natasha had told him that there was an inside source of information, but she didn’t know who it was. Ward’s first order of business would be rooting out and replacing anyone who posed a security risk.

When he heard Skye moving around upstairs, followed by the shower running, he started the coffee and preheated the oven. By the time she came downstairs thirty minutes later, he had the frittata on the island along with coffee and fresh fruit. He looked up and smiled when she walked into the kitchen. She had pinned her hair up and was dressed casually in gray shorts, a white tank top and a faded red and blue plaid shirt. He noticed it was too big for her – she had rolled the sleeves up to her elbow.

“Hey,” she said, smiling as she looked curiously at the breakfast offerings. “You didn’t have to cook, but that smells amazing.”

“I didn’t cook, actually,” he replied. “A few of the neighbors came by and brought food.”

Skye grimaced. “They know? Because the last thing I really feel like doing today is talking about it.”

“Well, they don’t have details, but they know you were at work when it happened,” he explained. “Stacy, Rob and Ava were outside when I was leaving for the store yesterday and I mentioned you were working late. I gave Stacy a few more details this morning so that she would understand why you might not be up to visitors, and I think she’s running interference for us. I just don’t know how long she’ll be able to contain the nosy neighbors.”

Skye poured herself a cup of coffee, and her expression brightened when she saw him taking a new container of coffee creamer from the fridge. “I thought we were out?”

“A called a delivery service this morning. They stopped at the store before bringing my bike back,” he said, smiling at her obvious delight in such a small thing. He was glad he’d thought of it since he knew she wasn’t really a fan of black coffee. He’d been secretly amused when she bought a small container of creamer and kept it in their cooler on the drive west.

Ward had already eaten lunch, but he sat with Skye while she finished her meal. He stuck to light topics and used the time to gauge how she was really doing. It would be natural for her to pretend, even to herself, that things were fine even if they weren’t. It was the reaction he was expecting. He could give her some time, but eventually he knew they’d have to really talk about it.

They would probably also need to talk about the other thing that happened. Specifically, that they’d had sex and it was going to change things between them.

Ward wasn’t sorry it had happened, and he definitely meant for it to happen again. He was tired of the way they either ignored or danced around their attraction to one another. Since Skye had initiated the shift in their relationship, he knew she was too.

When the doorbell rang again, he opened the door to yet another neighbor. Mrs. Turner was a retired schoolteacher who lived three houses down, and he chatted with her for a few minutes before accepting the lemon pound cake she’d brought with her. It was still warm, proof that she’d gotten busy baking when she heard the news.

When he returned to the kitchen, Skye was rinsing her plate and utensils in the sink. She turned to him and sniffed appreciatively. “That smells good, too. What is it?”

“Lemon pound cake from Mrs. Turner,” he answered, placing it on the island.

Skye peeled up a corner of the foil covered cake and used a knife to cut a small sliver. She popped it into her mouth and chewed slowly. “Who knew being a hostage meant free food?”

She laughed, but the usually happy sound had a bitter edge. She was obviously attempting to cover, and it was falling flat. Ward watched her carefully as she smoothed the foil back into place and poured another cup of coffee. Deciding it was too early to push her to talk, he walked over and pulled her into a hug.

Skye returned it instantly, her arms wrapping tightly around him.

Ward didn’t speak; he just held her. It was funny, really. A few months ago he would have been uncomfortable with the prolonged embrace. Now he relished in the feel of her small body against his.

The doorbell rang again. He sighed and pressed his lips against the top of her head before releasing her. “I have a feeling the drop-bys are going to get old even if they are bringing food.”

She smiled at that. “Well, at least we don’t have to cook or leave the house for anything today. Bright side, right?”

Skye was the real bright side. His bright side. It was another of those stray thoughts that seemed to pop into his head when he was with her. He filed it away for later and went to answer the door.

***

Skye set her tablet aside with a sigh. The incident at Quinn Worldwide had made the national news. She supposed that with someone being murdered, there was no way to keep it quiet.

Ward was still going over the security information that Quinn had sent over that morning. She’d been expecting him to ask her to dig into the personnel files. When she asked him about it, though, he said he wanted to do his own research first. She suspected that he just didn’t want to give her any work to do. It was sweet, but eventually she’d feel restless just sitting around.

They’d discussed her going back to work, and Ward said he preferred that she wait for him. He planned to accept Quinn’s offer but likely wouldn’t start until the following week. Since it was only Tuesday, that left a week to fill. However, she had no idea how she was going to fill it when she had no work to do and she was actively avoiding the neighbors.

She walked over to the open kitchen window. It was a gorgeous summer day – bright and warm, and a light breeze carried the scent of something earthy and sweet. Suddenly the tire swing was calling out to her.

Grabbing a bottle of water and her phone, she said, “I’m going to go outside for a little while.”

Ward looked up and nodded. “Okay.”

Skye smiled. He was deep in mission mode at the moment, and it was something she found weirdly attractive about him. She found a lot of things weirdly attractive about him now, many of which she used to find annoying. Like the way he cut vegetables so very precisely, and the way he approached sandwich making like a military operation. He was a textbook Type A personality, while she was the exact opposite.

She’d been sure that, at some point, her penchant for clutter was going to clash in spectacular ways with his love of order. After all, she hadn’t forgotten his freaky pantry back in D.C. And yet she’d caught him smiling one day while he rearranged her shoes that had ended up in a disorganized pile on her side of the closet by the weekend. She remembered to pick up after herself most of the time, but she was still far messier than he was. It didn’t seem to bother him.

Slipping in her earbuds, Skye listened to one of her favorite playlists as she swung lazily beneath the tree. She’d been thinking of planting some flowers in the backyard. Ward had even cleared a spot for her along the edges of the patio. It would be something to keep her busy until she went back to work. Anything that kept her mind off what had happened in the lab would be a welcome distraction.

She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sunshine filtering through the branches. Unbidden, images of Ward on the sofa began a slow procession through her brain, causing a ripple of heat to zip through her veins. Biting her lip, she kicked off the ground to swing higher, letting the breeze cool her flushed cheeks.

She wondered how Ward felt about it. He hadn’t said anything, but he also hadn’t attempted to disguise the sexual interest in his eyes when she walked into the kitchen earlier. She took that as a good sign.

Skye was changing her playlist when she heard the back door open. Glancing over, she was surprised to see Miles and Hannah walking outside to join her. She pulled her legs through the tire and stood up to greet them. “Hey.”

Hannah hugged her tightly for a moment. “Hey. How are you today?”

“I’m okay,” Skye told her. “What about you guys? I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you last night.”

“Thanks to Grant, we’re all fine.” Hannah stepped back and shook her head. “It still doesn’t seem real.”

“I know. I’m just glad Grant was close,” Skye said. “I knew he was coming.”

“I still don’t understand that.” Hannah looked puzzled. “I saw the message you sent and you were talking about groceries, weren’t you? How did he know to come so fast?”

Skye bit her lip as she considered her response. “We kind of have a code,” she finally admitted. “It’s his Special Forces background – he’s paranoid. I totally made fun of him for it, too, and now I am _really_ glad he insisted on that.”

“Trust me, we’re all glad,” Miles said. “That guy holding us in the office never saw him coming. Hell, we didn’t see him coming either. He was suddenly just there and that dude was on the floor. It was crazy.”

“It really was,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “And I’m grateful, but I had nightmares about the knife in the hand move.”

Skye raised a brow. “Knife in the hand move?”

“The guy wasn’t answering questions, so Grant put a knife through his hand to make him talk. It kinda looked like he knew what he was doing, too.” Miles shoved his hands in his pockets. “He took down another guy on our way up to Applied Sciences and never broke a sweat. It was surreal, like a movie or something.”

“It’s kind of hard to believe he was the same Grant we hung out with at Mercado,” Hannah added. “I’ve never known anyone in real life who could do anything like that. Then afterwards, the way he was with you – it’s night and day, really.”

“Yeah, he’s… a complicated guy, I guess.” Skye smiled and shrugged. “That’s a terrible description, but it’s true. It’s kind of hard to believe I thought he was so one-note when we first met.”

“I heard Mr. Quinn talking on his phone,” Hannah said. “He apparently fired Dan Keller.”

“Who is Dan Keller?” Skye asked.

“Head of security – or former now,” Miles explained.

“I also heard him say that he’d offered Grant the job. Is he going to take it?” Hannah asked. “Because I’ll seriously feel a lot better about going back to work if he’s in charge.”

“I think so,” Skye said, deciding to keep it vague. “He’s still thinking about it.”

“Are you coming back to work this week?” Hannah looked worried for a moment. “I mean, you’re not thinking of quitting, are you?”

Skye sighed. “I don’t think so, no, but… we’re discussing what to do this week, so I won’t be back before next week.” She reached out and pushed the tire swing. “I kind of want to keep my mind off of everything for a few days, you know?”

“I see you got your tire swing,” Miles commented. “You always wanted one.”

“Yeah, I did. Grant surprised me with it at the end of my first work day. It was such a little thing that I was surprised he remembered it,” Skye said softly, giving the swing another small push.

“Well, you remember the little things when you love someone,” Miles told her as he shoved his hands in his pockets with a sigh. “I get it now – you and him. It was kind of hard not to after last night.”

Hannah reached out and squeezed Miles’ arm. “We should go. We just wanted to check on you, but we don’t want to intrude.”

Skye shook off the feeling of unease that swept through her at Miles’ words. It was what they wanted, after all – for this mission to be successful, people needed to believe that she and Ward were in love. Still, she had to wonder what exactly Miles saw the night before that convinced him. And at the end of the day, she had to remember that it was all a carefully cultivated illusion.

“I’m being a terrible hostess,” Skye said. “Why don’t you stay for coffee and I can give you a tour of the house? We’ve mostly finished decorating at this point.”

Hannah raised her brows at Miles, who nodded. “Okay, sounds good.”

***

Ward started the coffeemaker and cut a few slices of the lemon pound cake. After arranging the slices on small plates, he walked into the living room. Miles was sitting on the sofa and looking through the photo album Skye had left on the coffee table.

He looked up as Ward walked in. “They’re in the spare bedroom talking about color schemes.”

“Not surprised,” Ward said, moving to sit in the chair opposite the sofa. “Skye’s been nagging me to help her pick colors. I don’t want to come right out and say I don’t care but…”

“You really don’t, right?” Miles laughed. “Man, if anyone had told me that Skye would have nesting fever one day, I would have laughed. It’s never seemed like her thing. I guess it just proves I never really knew what she wanted.”

Ward was surprised that Miles seemed so okay with admitting that. “People change. And sometimes they’re afraid to admit what they really want because they think it’s not possible.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it,” Miles said as he closed the photo album. “I noticed she pulled out the plaid today. That shirt used to mean she was in defensive mode, but that’s not the same either. It’s probably more habit than anything.”

Ward was careful not to react to that surprising piece of information. He’d noticed the shirt was a man’s shirt, and now he wondered just who it belonged to. Not Miles, obviously, since it seemed that he associated it with negative reactions. Still, it was obviously something Miles knew about Skye – something Ward didn’t know.

“I want to say thank you for what you did last night,” Miles continued. “I feel like we’re all still alive because of you.”

“Not all, unfortunately,” Ward pointed out. “I really wish Skye hadn’t seen that. It’s not something she’ll be able to forget.”

“It could have been a lot worse, though. I guess you’ll be taking the job Mr. Quinn offered.”

Ward nodded. “Probably.”

Skye and Hannah were still discussing decorating ideas as they walked down the stairs to join them in the living room. Skye helped him pour the coffee and bring everything to the dining room table. Ward was quiet as he listened to Skye relate some of their cross-country adventures after Hannah asked about the prints on the wall.

He suddenly realized that he and Skye had a story – it was part of their cover, but it didn’t make the story less real. That was a first for him. Because no matter how many times he’d gone undercover, and no matter how many stories he created, he’d never had one that felt like this. He’d never had anyone like Skye.

Ward looked over at her as she talked about their time in Roswell. She was so animated and it was obvious that this was a good distraction for her. He noticed how often she reached out and touched him as she talked – a hand on his arm, or the way she would brush her fingers against his.

He took the dishes to the sink while Skye saw their guests out. After rinsing the last plate, he turned to see her wiping off the island. He walked over, took the cloth from her hands and lifted her onto the island. Then he kissed her, thoroughly, stepping into the space provided as she parted her knees to allow him to get closer.

God, she tasted so sweet. She swept her tongue against his, and her fingers tugged at his hair as she tried to pull him closer. He pulled her arms down so he could slide the plaid shirt off, and he kissed a trail down the side of her neck. She shuddered against him and tightened her thighs around his hips.

The doorbell rang. Ward leaned his forehead against her shoulder and silently cursed whoever was on the other side of that door.

“We could ignore it,” Skye whispered shakily.

Raising his head, he kissed her quickly. “I have a better idea. You head upstairs and run a bath. I’ll get rid of them and meet you in the garden tub.”

“Deal.” She hopped down and smiled as she passed him on the way to the stairs.

***

Skye sat on the edge of the garden tub as she waited for the water level to rise. Should she add some of her bath oil? Or maybe not – she wasn’t sure Ward would want to smell like her bath products. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t care? She grabbed the eucalyptus and mint oil she’d put away under the sink and added just a little. It was light and not totally girly.

The oil was part of a set that contained several small candles. She lined them up along the shelf above the garden tub, lit them, and then wondered if she was being way too romantic in setting the mood. She was getting ready to blow them out when Ward walked in carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Where did we get wine?” she asked curiously. She had bought a couple of bottles for the barbecue, but she thought they’d finished them.

“That was Aimee at the door. Tony sent over some food from the restaurant and included a couple of good bottles.” He had already opened the bottle, and she watched as he filled their glasses and set them on the side of the tub. “I opened the merlot – figured we’d save the Chianti for tomorrow.”

She couldn’t care less about the wine when all she wanted was him naked, but she nodded. “That’s fine.”

The air felt electrically charged as he approached. She lifted her arms and let him pull her tank top up. His hands cupped her shoulders before moving to her back and unhooking her bra. Skye stepped back and finished removing her clothes, her attention captivated by the abs revealed as he pulled his shirt over his head.

His hands reached for his belt buckle. She realized he was grinning at her, amused by the way she staring at him. She felt flushed and aware, and she turned back to the tub. The water level was high enough, so she cut off the water and pressed the button to start the jets. Slipping into the hot, scented water, she leaned back and waited for Ward to join her.

He eased into the water and passed her one of the wine glasses. Skye took a sip and sighed. “What are the chances the doorbell keeps ringing?”

“I disconnected the doorbell,” Ward told her. “We’ll worry about the neighbors again tomorrow.”

“Best idea ever,” she said. She stretched out her leg and slid her toes along his calf, up to his knee, and against his inner thigh. She felt the muscles twitch and smiled.

Ward set his wine glass aside and reached for her foot. She moaned as he dug his thumbs into the arch.

“Relax,” he said softly.

Skye leaned back and did just that. After a few minutes she put her glass on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes. He was working on the other foot now, and she was practically boneless when she felt his hands moving up her calf. He massaged the muscles there and switched to the other leg.

The slow burn working its way throughout her body had settled in the pit of her belly, and it was building as his hands moved higher – first her knees, and then to her hips. His fingers moved in slow circles against her wet skin, occasionally digging into pressure points she didn’t even know existed.

He was closer now. Skye moved her thighs further apart in a silent invitation. He braced one arm against the side of the tub and finally, she felt his hand move between her legs. The first touch of his fingers against her soft folds had her pulse racing, and she drew a shaky breath as their eyes met.

He was close enough to kiss her, but he didn’t; he just watched her. The tension in her belly was almost unbearable by the time he finally slid two fingers inside her. Unable to keep her hands to herself any longer, she grasped his arm with one hand and reached for him with the other.

He was already fully aroused. She stroked him slowly, keeping to the pace he had set. He suddenly leaned in kissed her neck. When his teeth scraped across her pulse point, she was distracted enough to release him. “Oh, God – do that again.”

Ward was happy to comply. He licked a trail down her neck and back up, biting her lightly again – and then again. His fingers were still inside her, and they were moving faster now. She closed her eyes and dug her nails into his shoulders as the ball of tension released, flooding her body with waves of pleasure.

She felt him moving in closer. His arousal was evident as he brushed against her belly, and her erogenous zones leapt to attention once more. Skye wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard. When Ward grasped her hips and pulled her closer still, she wrapped her legs around his waist and let out a shuddering breath when he entered her.

He thrust steadily against her for several minutes, apparently not rushing to completion. Then he lifted her higher, changing the depth and angle, and she buried her face against his neck as she bucked against him. She bit his shoulder as her second orgasm washed over her, her toes curling and her entire body shaking with the force of it.

Ward braced her against the side of the tub, anchoring her and thrusting hard. The muscles in his arms were tense as they banded around her, and then he stiffened against her with a groan. Skye slid her hands up his back and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.

When her stomach growled, he laughed and raised his head. “Hungry?”

Skye felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. “Well, that’s a little embarrassing.”

He kissed her once more, slowly, before pulling away. “Tony sent spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, and chicken fettucine. There’s also a salad and breadsticks and some tiramisu. What sounds good?”

Her stomach growled again. “All of it, apparently.” She folded her hands over her stomach and mentally shushed the offending organ. She watched as Ward stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel, running it over his body before wrapping it securely around his hips.

“I’ll get it heated up,” he said.

He picked up the bottle of wine and his glass, and she handed him hers as she stepped out of the tub. Setting them on the bathroom counter, he picked up another towel and wrapped it around her.

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. He carefully ran the edge of the soft terrycloth across her shoulders and down her arms before tucking the corner under her arm. His hands moved to the small of her back and pulled her closer. “Lasagna?”

Skye nodded. He kissed her temple and released her, picking up the wine and glasses on his way out. She sat down on the side of the tub and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She was hungry, but not just for food. Sex with Ward was like a decadent dessert; a small taste was enough to reel her in and tempt her to binge.

She stood, blew out the candles on the shelf and flipped the lever to drain the tub. She took a few extra minutes to moisturize and smooth on a lightly scented body lotion before making her way to the dresser. For the first time, she wished she had lingerie that was even a little sexy. She’d never bothered buying anything like that before.

Settling on a pair of blue, silk shorts and a matching tank top, she pulled them on and looked in the mirror. It was one of her nicer sets since the tank top had delicate spaghetti straps and lace details, but it didn’t scream sexy times.

Skye turned off the light and headed downstairs. She might not have any sexy lingerie, but she had plenty of ideas about how to seduce Agent Ward. That was a good start.

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed the update! I should have more time for writing now, so expect updates for this story, The Head and the Heart series, and very soon I’ll start posting the Skye/Felicity crossover fic that picks up where Things We Lost in the Fire ended. If you have questions, you can find me on Tumblr and Twitter. I have the same username everywhere (Poetgirl925) so it’s pretty easy to find me. Thanks for reading!**

**Up Next: Ward sets up a video call with the team for Skye. Sexy times continue, and they both start trying to learn more about one another. When the memorial service for Holly has Skye feeling down, Ward plans a getaway for them.**


	14. Chapter 14

 

Skye moved through the crowd with Ward after she lit her candle at the memorial service for Holly on Wednesday evening. While the funeral would be limited to family and close friends, Holly’s parents had supported the memorial organized by Ian Quinn and were standing at the front with Holly’s sisters and her mentor, Dr. Collins.

She’d learned that she and Holly were the same age. Holly had graduated top of her class from Berkeley, and she was the top intern in Dr. Collins’ graduate program. She was driven and successful but still took time out for her family and friends, and she was involved in community service. She was also recently engaged, and her fiancé looked lost as he joined the family to speak with Holly’s co-workers.

Skye tried not to stiffen when Ian Quinn approached, and she felt Ward’s hand drift down her back to her waist in a soothing gesture.

“I’m glad to see you looking better,” Quinn said, smiling at her.

“Thanks,” Skye replied, crossing her arms as she tried to smile back. Feeling like she should say something else, she added, “This is nice – the memorial. I’m sure her family appreciates it.”

“I thought it would be a good idea for everyone,” he acknowledged. “The funeral is private, and this way the people who worked with her can get a sense of closure. We’re also discussing funding a scholarship in her name.”

Skye remained quiet as Quinn and Ward discussed the paperwork he’d sent over. Ward still hadn’t officially accepted the offer, but Skye could see that Quinn was fully expecting him to do so by the following week. He once again urged Skye to take as much time off as she needed before continuing to work the crowd.

“We can leave whenever you’re ready,” Ward told her quietly.

She sighed, suddenly feeling depressed. Skye had never met Holly – she only knew what she’d learned about her through other people who spoke earlier. But she’d watched her die, and she was still trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy.

“I’m ready,” she replied. She took his hand and let him lead her towards the park entrance. She’d lost track of Miles and Hannah in the crowd, so she sent Hannah a text message before turning off her phone.

When they got home, she and Ward reheated the Italian food from Milano’s and opened the bottle of Chianti. Skye felt preoccupied, her head full of unanswered questions that she still wasn’t sure she wanted to voice. She finished her meal on auto pilot, barely tasting the small portions of lasagna and chicken fettuccine, and for once she didn’t even touch the food on Ward’s plate.

“You’re quiet,” Ward commented as he took her plate and carried it over to the sink.

Skye took a sip of her wine. “I guess I’m still trying to work it out in my mind.”

Ward leaned against the sink and said, “Skye, if you have questions or you want to talk, you can talk to me. This is part of why I’m here.”

She looked down at her wine glass, swirling the red liquid in an absentminded fashion. She knew that was why he was here – her job was Quinn and his job was her. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about that; it wasn’t the first time she’d wondered exactly what managing the mission entailed for him. She knew that was why he’d had such an abrupt attitude shift when Hill ordered their forty-eight hour cohabitation. The whole point had been for them to work their shit out.

Somewhere during their road trip, she’d quit thinking about getting along with him as managing the mission. Skye had been genuinely curious about him, and she’d enjoyed spending time with him. She still did, and she felt reasonably sure it was mutual. But now she found herself wondering about his other undercover assignments – how involved they were, if any innocent people were ever hurt, and how he managed those missions.

“I guess I’m just thinking about what it means to work undercover,” she finally said. “I’m not naïve. I know that missions sometimes go wrong. And it’s not like I don’t know there’s a problematic side to organizations like SHIELD since I used to expose their cover-ups, but I really believed that the good outweighed the bad. Then there’s Holly.”

Ward sighed and pushed away from the sink. “Let’s go sit down.”

She followed him into the living room and curled into the corner of the sofa beside him. “Natasha said that she would have blown her cover to protect me. Do you think that’s true?”

“I think Natasha always means exactly what she says, and she’s not in the habit of sugarcoating anything,” Ward told her. “So yes, I think that’s true.”

Skye nodded. “What about Holly? Do you think she would have blown her cover to protect her?”

“I don’t know. I think she would have done her best to protect any innocents, but she also had a mission and another objective,” he said frankly. “Sometimes you have to weigh the situation and make the hard call. All agents have to do that at some point, Skye, but specialists make those hard calls a lot more often due to the nature of our missions. That’s why there are so few high level specialists.”

“What about you?” she asked, her dark eyes searching his. “How many of those hard calls have you had to make?”

“Too many.” His mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “Specialists aren’t white knights. I’ve had to kill people I wish I hadn’t. I’ve done things I didn’t like doing. I try to keep my missions as clean as possible, but sometimes things get muddy and innocent people get caught in the crossfire.”

“Like Kamila?” Skye wasn’t sure why her mind kept going back to Kamila. Maybe it was because she knew Ward had entered into a relationship with her for the sole purpose of managing his mission. She doubted the woman saw it coming, and she wondered if she ever knew why it ended. She believed Ward when he said she wasn’t innocent but there was still a part of her that wanted to know how easy it had been to deceive her and what happened to her when the mission was over.

“Are you asking me if I killed her?” His tone was curiously flat, and something shifted in his expression.

“I… no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what I’m asking.”

Ward was silent for a minute. Finally, he said, “As far as I know, Kamila is still living her life. She believes I cheated on her, and she ended the relationship. I put in for a transfer, and my cover remained intact.”

“Okay.” It was still kind of horrible, but she couldn’t deny she was relieved it wasn’t worse than that.

“The intelligence I gathered on that mission saved thousands of lives,” he continued. “And just to be clear, you are not Kamila.”

“I know,” she said quickly.

“Do you?” he asked. “Because I’m getting the impression that you think this assignment is somehow like that one, and they couldn’t be more different. For one thing, you’re not my mark – you’re my partner.”

“I know,” she told him. She set her wine glass on the coffee table and turned to face him fully. “I guess I was just thinking that the way you manage the mission might be similar, and I don’t like the idea of being managed.”

Ward stared at her, his expression unreadable. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Managing you in order to manage the mission?”

Skye was starting to feel like she’d made a mistake bringing this up since the last thing she wanted to do was argue with him. “I don’t know, Grant. I guess sometimes I think that maybe you go out of your way to make my life easier because it’s part of the mission, like the tire swing, and...” she paused, suddenly realizing how silly that sounded, not to mention ungrateful. If she started questioning every nice thing he did for her, it would definitely change things. She doubted that change would be for the better, either.

“Do you think I’m using sex to manage you?”

“No, of course not,” she answered. She knew that he felt the pull of attraction between them as much as she did, and she’d been the one to initiate the change in their relationship. She bit her lip and reached for his hand. “You said you wanted me to talk to you, and I’m trying. I’m just not really making any sense because it’s confusing. There are times I forget about the mission because I’m living my life – only this isn’t my life. I’m trying to figure out where the lines are, and I’m thinking about how to manage my end of the mission without hurting people.”

“When I told you that not everything with us is a lie? I meant it,” he said. He held her gaze as he continued. “In the beginning, yes – there were some things that I did to manage the situation because I didn’t want to argue with you. The only way this mission was going to work was if we could wipe the slate clean and start over. That doesn’t mean I have an agenda every time I do something for you, Skye. It’s true that I try to help you manage your anxiety and worries. It’s also true that I’d do that for any partner. I guess you could look at it like managing the mission, but I haven’t thought about it that way for a while.”

Skye felt some of her worry and unease slipping away.

“Things were already getting complicated before we slept together,” he told her. “Sometimes things can start to feel a little too real when you’re undercover. I wish I could tell you that no one will be hurt, but I’m not going to lie to you. Eventually this assignment will be over and if our covers are intact, we’ll move away and the friendships you’ve made will end because it won’t be possible to continue the lie. If our covers are blown, they’ll probably end anyway because people won’t really understand even if they say they do – people like Hannah and Stacy, for example.”

_And us? What happens to us?_

There were still some questions she wasn’t ready to ask, though. She’d told him to let her worry about being hurt, and she’d wanted to live in the moment. She still wanted that. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I know we’re partners and the mission comes first, but I feel like we’re friends.”

He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I think we’re getting there.”

She could work with that. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I feel like what happened to Holly is my fault.” She felt his hand move down to her cheek, his palm warm against her skin.

“Why?”

“Because if I hadn’t stayed late, maybe Natasha could have worried about her instead of me.” This was the real reason she didn’t want to think about what happened. She didn’t want to think about it or talk about it because she wondered if things would have turned out differently if she hadn’t been there.

“Skye, look at me.”

Skye opened her eyes and blinked back the sting of tears.

“What ifs will drive you crazy if you let them,” he told her. “If you’re to blame then so am I for yelling at you and upsetting you in the first place. You’re not the first person to ask me about my family, but I’ve never snapped like that before. I reacted badly because it was you asking.”

“Why am I different?” she asked softly.

“Because you don’t have the same darkness inside that I do. I didn’t want you to see that side of me.”

Skye was surprised to see an uncharacteristic vulnerability in his eyes. She reached up and placed her hand over his where it still rested against her cheek. “I won’t push again, but you should know I don’t scare easily.”

Ward smiled at that. “I’m starting to see that.” He leaned forward and kissed her gently. “I need to check in with Coulson about the information Quinn sent over. If you want to go take a shower, I’ll finish cleaning up in the kitchen.”

Skye squeezed his hand again before picking up her still full wine glass and going upstairs. She took a long, hot shower and then wrapped a towel around her as she sat on the edge of the tub and dried her hair. When it fell in loose, silky waves down her back, she smoothed on moisturizer and changed into one of her tank and shorts sets.

She was glad that she’d actually talked to Ward because she felt some of the burden she’d carried since Monday had lifted. Now that she’d broached the topics of mission parameters and the troubling morality and complications that accompanied field work, she thought it would be easier to bring it up again in the future. She still had questions, but she didn’t have to ask all of them at the same time.

When she walked back downstairs, Ward was on the phone. He motioned her over and then handed it to her.

She was half expecting it to be Stacy, but she grinned when she heard a familiar voice.

“How are you?” Coulson asked.

“I’m a lot better now than I was earlier,” she told him. “I’ll be fine. How are you? How is everyone?”

Skye perched on the edge of the island, swinging her feet as she watched Ward rearrange items in the refrigerator. Two casseroles and a quiche had gone into the freezer after the neighbors delivered them, and they’d slowly been making their way through the other leftovers. As nice as it was not to worry about shopping for groceries and preparing food, she was starting to miss cooking with Ward in the evenings.

Coulson stuck to lighter topics and didn’t ask her anything mission related. Skye told him about her job at Quinn’s company and some of the projects she was working on. When she mentioned the memorial, he asked her if she planned to go back to work.

She knew what he was really asking was if she was okay to continue the mission. “I’ll be ready as soon as Grant is able to start.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Yeah. He and I have talked about it, and I’m fine. Promise.”

“Okay then. Someone else here would like to talk to you.”

Trip took the phone from Coulson, and Skye talked to him for the next fifteen minutes.

“Jemma showed me a picture you sent her. It looked like you were hiking, but I know that can’t be right,” Trip teased her.

“Ha ha,” she retorted, smiling. “I’m working out in the evenings too. Sometimes, anyway.”

She could see Ward in the dining room on his laptop. After she finished her call, she walked over to the dining room table to see what he was doing.

“It’s not a good idea to do video calls with Coulson or Trip even if we think it’s secure,” Ward told her. “But I thought you might want to talk to Fitz and Simmons.”

“Really?” She hadn’t brought up the idea of doing video calls since they left D.C.

“We’ve set up a link on a secure server,” he advised her. “Check the security measures first, and you shouldn’t talk about anything mission related.”

He moved his chair over as she scooted hers closer, and Skye’s fingers flew across the keys as she tested the server security. She added another layer and when she was satisfied with the results, she eagerly initiated the call.

She was so happy to be able to both see and hear Fitz and Jemma that she didn’t even care that they had to stick to superficial topics. She hadn’t spoken to them in months, so she’d missed out on the little stories that made up her friends’ daily lives. It was probably the little stories, like how Fitz had gotten a friend and a bigger tank for Nemo or discussion of Jemma’s new haircut that she’d missed the most anyway.

Ward went upstairs to take a shower and Fitz eventually left them to their girl talk after Skye finished giving them a video tour of the house. She moved the laptop into the kitchen and set it up on the island while she ate the last piece of tiramisu and debated whether or not to bring up the next subject.

Licking the spoon, she set it aside and slid onto the stool. “So, I’ve never really been the lingerie type, which you know since you were with me on nearly every mall outing. But let’s say I want to buy something nicer than my shorts and tanks – where should I go?”

Jemma’s mouth fell open, and Skye could see her just _dying_ to ask the obvious question.

Her friend leaned closer to the monitor. “I suppose that depends on what you like or what he likes.”

Skye propped her chin on her hand. She had no idea what Grant liked. “Well, he’s never complained even if it’s just yoga pants, tanks, shorts or that one plaid shirt I had to fight you for.” She figured that would more or less answer Jemma’s unspoken question.

“I can’t believe we have to have this sort of girl talk over a video call,” Jemma complained. “California is too far away.”

Skye couldn’t argue with that.

“It’s nice to see that you’re settling in so well,” Jemma said, obviously being careful of her phrasing. “A big move like this can sometimes add stress to a relationship, but it sounds as though you’re both adjusting well.”

“Very well,” Skye agreed. “Mr. Quinn offered Grant a position as head of security after… you know, what happened. It’ll be a little weird going to work together every day, but he’s probably going to take it.”

“I for one would feel much safer with him in charge,” Jemma said. She was staring at her phone; after scrolling for a minute, she looked up and said, “Any of your local shopping malls have lingerie stores. If he’s happy with what you’re already wearing then I’m certain you can find something nice enough there. Perhaps for the holidays you could try a higher end store. For example, Agent Provocateur is on Rodeo and L’Agent is on Melrose.”

They continued to chat about lingerie stores and dress boutiques in the area. Skye remembered how resistant she’d been to the idea of shopping when Jemma first began dragging her along in an attempt to update her wardrobe. Now she wished Jemma were here and they could have a girl’s day out.

She’d never been particularly vain or concerned with fashion, preferring comfortable and practical over less affordable options. Still, she liked dressing up for date nights, and she liked the way Ward looked at her when they were out. Just once, she’d like to see how he reacted to lingerie meant for seduction rather than comfort.

It was getting late, so she ended the call with a promise to call again soon. Skye washed her plate and fork and took her laptop back to the living room. Spying the plaid shirt she’d worn the day before, she slipped it on over her white tank top and went upstairs.

Ward was still up, his attention on a new book he’d begun a few days ago. After brushing her teeth, she climbed into bed and slid over next to him.

“How’s the book?” she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder.

He slid his bookmark into place and closed the book before setting it on the nightstand. “Almost finished. How are Jemma and Fitz?”

“Good,” she replied with a smile. “It’s funny because I haven’t known them for that long, but I really miss both of them.”

“I know.” He ran his hand over the sleeve of her plaid shirt. “Miles said something yesterday, about you wearing this shirt when you’re feeling defensive.”

Skye sat up a little so she could see his face. He was curious, but she could tell he wouldn’t push if she didn’t want to talk about it. He’d opened up to her earlier, though. If she wanted him to continue sharing with her, she’d need to get used to sharing as well.

“I felt defensive with Miles pretty often, so that might be true. It belonged to one of my foster brothers. He was a couple of years older than me, and the oldest of the three of us in my last foster home. He looked out for us.”

“What happened to him?” Ward asked.

She shrugged. “He aged out of the system, and a few weeks later I was sent back to St. Agnes. He said he’d check in, but I booked not long after that. I don’t know if he ever came around looking for me.”

She’d kept the shirt, and it was the only plaid shirt to survive Jemma’s raid on her closet since she flatly refused to get rid of it.

Ward pushed one sleeve off her shoulder and kissed the bare skin revealed. Skye shivered as she sat up and allowed him to slide the shirt off. His lips and tongue moved down the side of her neck, and the trail of heat traveled the length of her body.

They undressed each other slowly. Skye began a lazy exploration of his chest and the ridged muscles of his abdomen, admiring the tightly wound strength she felt when she gripped his arms. “I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated how nice the male form is before now,” she said, dipping her tongue into his navel before moving back up to press kisses from one side of his chest to the other.

His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her up so he could kiss her. Skye moved over him carefully and slid down, unable to contain her moan when he filled her. She pressed forward until they were skin to skin, threading her fingers into his hair and kissing him again as they rocked together in a slow, unhurried rhythm.

Afterwards she curled into him, her head pillowed against his shoulder. He was still stroking her neck and back, and she felt a sense of contentment that was utterly foreign to her simply because it felt so right.

“I was thinking we could go away for the weekend,” Ward said quietly.

She sighed and wiggled as he hit a ticklish spot. “Where?”

“Anywhere you want to go,” he answered. “Going back to work next week is probably going to be harder than you think. Tomorrow we can look at the map, pick a place and forget about the mission for a few days.”

That sounded like heaven to her. “Best idea ever,” she said sleepily as she tried to suppress a yawn, the stress of the day finally catching up to her. She drifted for a few more minutes before allowing the sound of his steady heartbeat to lull her to sleep.

**A/N – I moved stuff around quite a lot while I was editing because I decided this more serious conversation was needed here as opposed to where it was before (a couple of chapters ahead.) It won’t be the last such conversation they have, but I felt it needed to happen now. I’m cutting the chapter before their weekend getaway because I’m still thinking of changing something there and I didn’t want to make you wait while I think about it since I promised I’d post the update today. I’m behind on answering reviews at FF, but I’ll get back to answering any questions you’ve asked tomorrow. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the update!**

**Author's Note:**

> Up Next - Will a forty-eight hour mandatory cohabitation force Skye and Ward to deal more honestly with each other? Stay tuned!


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